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Hey guys, kanna here with your spoiler-free review of Attack on Titan Part 2 - End of the World. Sit back, grab a coffee, tea, hot chocolate, whatever, and enjoy.
After we saved our sanity with last week's Anime Monday, One Punch Man, it's time to lose our sanity again with Attack on Titan Part 2 - End of the World. Or in Japanese, 進撃の巨人エンドオブザブザワールド.
Before we get started, I thought it was interesting that they transliterated the words "End of the World" instead of using the words 世界の終わり, which literally means "End of the World." Maybe it's because the band doing the theme songs for both parts has the same name, Sekai no Owari? Who knows?
Now I had hoped and prayed that this would be better than the abomination that was Attack on Titan: Part 1.
I could only be so lucky.
Where do I even begin? Well, for starters, let's talk box office. This isn't something I would talk about, as I don't typically follow box office numbers. But boy oh boy, did this movie do poorly. And I'm not surprised. Everyone went into Part 1 thinking it was going to be some epic masterpiece, and as a result of that thinking, it made 3.3 billion yen (27.5 million USD).
Little did they know that what they thought was going to be an epic masterpiece was going to be HORRIBLE.
Still, it did make a ton of money and managed to outperform its sequel, Part 2, by a considerably large margin. How much, you ask? 17.54 million USD (2.1 million yen). See, while Part 1 made 3.3 billion yen, Part 2 only managed to rake in 1.2 billion yen (9.96 million USD). That's pretty bad.
Anyway, we have the same people returning to their writing, directing, and acting duties for this movie. So the crappy writing team that worked on Part 1 has returned. And somehow, they managed to do even worse with this one.
I honestly didn't think it was possible for this to be worse than Part 1. But it happened. So, thank you, Hajime Isayama, for proving the impossible. I say this with the utmost sincerity: thank you for gracing us with not one, but two disgraces to Attack on Titan.
I mean...wow.
This movie had no plot, the acting (what I could judge of it, given the only subbed movie I could find had Russian audio) was pretty bad, and there was little to no direction. I couldn't feel any emotion for any of the characters. I nearly fell asleep within the first twenty minutes.
Let me spell this out for you. The first ten minutes consisted of a recap of Part 1, complete with stock footage, narration, the works. That's enough to put anyone to sleep if they saw Part 1. We then get a flashback that's about two minutes long, and then about ten minutes or so of Kubal interrogating Eren. Then again, I can hardly say how much time they spent on that scene, as I was practically half asleep during that scene. I had to hold my head up just so I could stay focused on the movie.
It was like watching a Shyamalan movie, only one that somehow managed to be WORSE than the worst of Shyamalan's films. And that's saying a lot.
The CGI somehow managed to be worse than the last movie's. Again, that's saying a lot. Remember the cruddy CGI from Mortal Kombat: Annihilation? Think that, imagine it evolving and changing over the years, and STILL managing to be worse than that.
Hajime Isayama...I don't even know what to say to you anymore. You aren't a bad writer, but the fact that you asked to make the characters "more relatable" in a way that people could empathize with them actually made it harder to relate to them. You turned Eren into a wimp, Mikasa into Little Miss Pouty, made them boyfriend and girlfriend (I'm never going to understand that angle, am I?), and just made so many changes that the plot completely disappeared.
The characters were no longer the characters we knew and loved, regardless of the name change. The two characters that stayed the same were Sasha and Hanji Zoe. I'm not even talking name change; they actually managed to keep their personalities intact. Heck, even Armin's personality was kept intact (more or less). But they changed so much that it was just...not even Attack on Titan anymore.
Look, I'm still going to read the Attack on Titan manga and watch the anime as soon as the second season premieres. But Hajime Isayama needed to stick to what he was good at: NOT SCREENWRITING. While Part 1 felt like a slap in the face to the fans, Part 2 felt like a punch in the gut.
Well, I'm off to go and recover from this. This ranting gave me a pretty bad headache.
Til next time! ~k
After we saved our sanity with last week's Anime Monday, One Punch Man, it's time to lose our sanity again with Attack on Titan Part 2 - End of the World. Or in Japanese, 進撃の巨人エンドオブザブザワールド.
Before we get started, I thought it was interesting that they transliterated the words "End of the World" instead of using the words 世界の終わり, which literally means "End of the World." Maybe it's because the band doing the theme songs for both parts has the same name, Sekai no Owari? Who knows?
Now I had hoped and prayed that this would be better than the abomination that was Attack on Titan: Part 1.
I could only be so lucky.
Where do I even begin? Well, for starters, let's talk box office. This isn't something I would talk about, as I don't typically follow box office numbers. But boy oh boy, did this movie do poorly. And I'm not surprised. Everyone went into Part 1 thinking it was going to be some epic masterpiece, and as a result of that thinking, it made 3.3 billion yen (27.5 million USD).
Little did they know that what they thought was going to be an epic masterpiece was going to be HORRIBLE.
Still, it did make a ton of money and managed to outperform its sequel, Part 2, by a considerably large margin. How much, you ask? 17.54 million USD (2.1 million yen). See, while Part 1 made 3.3 billion yen, Part 2 only managed to rake in 1.2 billion yen (9.96 million USD). That's pretty bad.
Anyway, we have the same people returning to their writing, directing, and acting duties for this movie. So the crappy writing team that worked on Part 1 has returned. And somehow, they managed to do even worse with this one.
I honestly didn't think it was possible for this to be worse than Part 1. But it happened. So, thank you, Hajime Isayama, for proving the impossible. I say this with the utmost sincerity: thank you for gracing us with not one, but two disgraces to Attack on Titan.
I mean...wow.
This movie had no plot, the acting (what I could judge of it, given the only subbed movie I could find had Russian audio) was pretty bad, and there was little to no direction. I couldn't feel any emotion for any of the characters. I nearly fell asleep within the first twenty minutes.
Let me spell this out for you. The first ten minutes consisted of a recap of Part 1, complete with stock footage, narration, the works. That's enough to put anyone to sleep if they saw Part 1. We then get a flashback that's about two minutes long, and then about ten minutes or so of Kubal interrogating Eren. Then again, I can hardly say how much time they spent on that scene, as I was practically half asleep during that scene. I had to hold my head up just so I could stay focused on the movie.
It was like watching a Shyamalan movie, only one that somehow managed to be WORSE than the worst of Shyamalan's films. And that's saying a lot.
The CGI somehow managed to be worse than the last movie's. Again, that's saying a lot. Remember the cruddy CGI from Mortal Kombat: Annihilation? Think that, imagine it evolving and changing over the years, and STILL managing to be worse than that.
Hajime Isayama...I don't even know what to say to you anymore. You aren't a bad writer, but the fact that you asked to make the characters "more relatable" in a way that people could empathize with them actually made it harder to relate to them. You turned Eren into a wimp, Mikasa into Little Miss Pouty, made them boyfriend and girlfriend (I'm never going to understand that angle, am I?), and just made so many changes that the plot completely disappeared.
The characters were no longer the characters we knew and loved, regardless of the name change. The two characters that stayed the same were Sasha and Hanji Zoe. I'm not even talking name change; they actually managed to keep their personalities intact. Heck, even Armin's personality was kept intact (more or less). But they changed so much that it was just...not even Attack on Titan anymore.
Look, I'm still going to read the Attack on Titan manga and watch the anime as soon as the second season premieres. But Hajime Isayama needed to stick to what he was good at: NOT SCREENWRITING. While Part 1 felt like a slap in the face to the fans, Part 2 felt like a punch in the gut.
Well, I'm off to go and recover from this. This ranting gave me a pretty bad headache.
Til next time! ~k
Hey guys, kanna here!
So now that we've saved our sanity thanks to One Punch Man, it's time to get ready to lose it again. I promised this review for a while, and here it is: Attack on Titan Part 2 - End of the World.
I'm not going to waste any time with this, so if you haven't read my review of Part 1, I STRONGLY suggest you read it, as from this point on, it's full spoilers ahead.
The movie opens up with a recap of Part 1. Same animation, same footage, same...pretty much everything for about ten minutes. Which would have been a great idea if it didn't feel like one of those "Previously on..." things you see in TV shows. And even those aren't that long; they're usually anywhere from thirty seconds to one or two minutes. Not to mention that there really wasn't anything worth remembering about the first film, so that whole ten minutes or so was entirely POINTLESS.
And I normally wouldn't be this uptight about it, if it wasn't for the fact that Part 1 was an abomination of a film and a disgrace to Attack on Titan, and we had to relive that movie for the first ten minutes of Part 2.
OK, enough of that. I complained about Part 1 already. Let's keep this on track.
Oh, and there's a flashback that actually ties in with the anime. It's Eren as a young child and his father injecting him with a serum before his mother intervenes, then the police come and chaos ensues. And...that's basically it. To be fair, that's all the anime gave us, too, so I guess it's not that bad.
So our movie really starts shortly after the first one ended, and we see that Eren has been captured by Commander Kubal and his squadron and has been put in a straightjacket. At least, I think it's a straightjacket. It looks like a cross between what people in psych wards wear and those jackets magicians use for escape tricks.
Anyway, Kubal and co. believe that Eren is a threat to humanity, as he can turn into a Titan. So they ask him the big question: Titan or human? Guns are pointed at Eren and everything; he is about to be executed.
Eren, however, tries to convince everyone that he's human. And even though his comrades witnessed him wipe out A BUNCH of Titans and had caused NO HUMAN CASUALTIES WHATSOEVER as a Titan, one person, Souda, jumps to his defense. Unfortunately, in the midst of explaining stuff about the Titans and even revealing Eren had a brother at one point, one of Kubal's soldiers shoots and kills him before he can say anymore.
First off, WHY did Souda defend Eren? I mean, I'm sure Eren much appreciated it and everything, but even Mikasa, who was supposed to be Eren's girlfriend (seriously, Mr. Isayama? You went with this angle?), didn't defend him. Armin defended him, but Kubal and co. were all, "Eren turned into a Titan, we believe you can turn on us, so you deserve to croak." And that doesn't really make much sense, but I'll address why later with my other complaints.
Next thing we know, this other Titan, the Armored Titan, busts through the roof of the building that they're all in, destroys the top of the building, and causes a bunch of deaths. Kubal is killed (RIP character we didn't really know or care much about) along with a few other people, as this Titan that seems to be intelligent takes Eren out and walks away after receiving a "death glare" from Mikasa. And I put quotes around death glare because it looks like a cross between a pout and a death glare. Not to mention that that was pretty wimpy on the Titan's part. But we'll get to all my complaining later. Because there is A LOT of it.
So Eren wakes up in this bunker (which looks more like a psych ward) and finds Shikishima (the movie's version of Captain Levi FREAKING Ackerman) is there. Shikishima explains the origin of the Titans through Apple TV (I swear, this is product placement for Apple TV; the remote is right there in the shot. I'm also pretty sure I saw footage from Super 8 in this scene). This wasn't addressed in the anime, but was somewhat revealed in the manga. And because this hasn't been addressed in the anime yet, this is a blog about anime and not manga, and this review is full spoilers ahead, I can tell you all about it! Yay!
Origins: The Titans were actually human beings who were used as test subjects in military experiments. Unfortunately for the scientists conducting the experiment, something went wrong, and the humans turned into these massive Titans. And because the definition of insanity (you know, keep trying the same way on something that clearly doesn't work and hope for a different outcome) is something that is clearly unknown to these scientists, these experiments continued for decades. It turned into a disaster for mankind as what was apparently a virus that could rapidly multiply turned humans into mindless Titans.
Anyway, after the origins are explained via Apple TV and what I'm convinced is footage from Super 8 (really?), they're somehow sitting on beach chairs in another place. No, I don't get how that happened.
Shikishima then asks Eren to reflect on one question: how to destroy the Titans. Shikishima continues to explain that the virus made the Titans immortal and able to adapt to temperature and weather. Since they have no need to eat or drink, the Titans are near invincible. The virus never stopped developing, so it also made the Titans ageless and immortal.
Eren realizes that the one person who knows how to destroy the Titans is his father, who's dead (well, we think he is at any rate; the flashback left things pretty unclear when it ended), but the interesting thing here is that Shikishima refers to Eren's father as his own father, too, revealing that he and Eren are brothers (hello, plot twist...I think. There were a few typos in the subtitles, so whether the subbers meant "your" or "our" is unknown, especially considering the audio was in Russian and not the original Japanese). Not only that, but Eren's father was the one who created the Titan experiment.
So a while later, Shikishima and Eren meet up with the rest of the Scouting Regiment, who picked up a bomb from a district that they're planning to use to blow up parts of the walls so the Titans can't get in (which worked so well before, right?). We then get Shikishima's real sinister plan: he wants to launch a coup (is that the right spelling? French words like that always get me, so I'm not sure) against the government, who wanted to keep the people in the walls and used the Titans as a way to instill fear in the people. Eren isn't having any of that, so we get to watch Eren get his ass handed to him on a silver platter by Shikishima, before Shikishima reveals that he is...the Armored Titan.
Granted, the transformation scenes don't look that great, but they lead to THE BEST PART OF BOTH PARTS OF THE MOVIE. Full Titan vs. Titan action. This fight scene was freaking AMAZING, even though it was only about two minutes, and as much as I want to go on about it...the bad parts of the film do outweigh the good.
After Eren kills Shikishima, he stays in Titan form and decides to go along with the plan as he carries the bomb up the wall with a little difficulty, but manages to do it with encouragement from Mikasa. After he's taken out of the Titan and returned to human form, we see that Kubal has, in fact, SURVIVED about a thousand tons of rock falling on him. That would have turned anyone into a pancake. ANYONE. But apparently, this leads us to another realization: Kubal is a Titan-shifter as well. And he can't just become any Titan, but he can become...the Colossal Titan.
Yeah, that crappy as heck CGI abomination from the first part? That was Kubal. And because the rest of this basically makes no sense, the short version is that Shikishima somehow survived and decides to go back into Titan form and sacrifice himself by blowing up the wall, himself, and Kubal as the Colossal Titan. Our "heroes" look over and see the outside of the walls, and the credits roll.
So...was this as bad as the first movie? No. Was it worse than the first movie? Yes. Rating of Part 2: 0 out of 5. Rating of both films as a whole: 0 out of 10.
Why: Holy frick, I felt like I was watching Mortal Kombat: Annihilation when I was watching this because of the horrible CGI. There was almost no plot, I couldn't really care about any of the characters, and the story just seemed like it was going nowhere. So many characters died, and you couldn't really feel bad about it, because they were either given little to no screen time, or they had little character development.
It was hard to judge the acting with this, because the only subbed version of this I could find had Russian audio and not Japanese (seriously, I was so desperate I would have settled for a version without subtitles as long as it had Japanese audio). But out of all the actors in this, I'd say Satomi Ishihara was the best, and Kiko Mizuhara was the worst. Satomi Ishihara had Hanji Zoe's character spot-on in this, and was actually pretty funny. But Kiko Mizuhara did NOTHING in either movie. I felt like I was watching Kristen Stewart act. She just pouted the whole time.
The one character I actually really wanted to enjoy in this was Armin, played by Kanata Hongo. But even HE did next to nothing. Actually, that's not entirely true. He did have the guts to stand up to Shikishima and threaten to detonate the bomb, which would kill himself, his comrades, and Shikishima. He was also a brilliant strategist and I felt like Kanata Hongo actually played the part pretty well, despite the bad writing.
But the bad writing, directing, and CGI are what totally drag this movie down. Sure, you can blame it on the acting all you want, but when you have a script that's bad with no direction, no plot, and no organization whatsoever, your movie is basically screwed. You can't even say it's one of those movies that's so bad it's good. These movies are so bad that they're AWFUL. They are a disgrace to Attack on Titan.
You know the Star Wars Holiday Special? The project that George Lucas was personally ashamed of? I'm surprised that the writers and directors don't feel that way about these movies. Especially when you consider that the second film did even WORSE in the box office than the first one did. The special effects director, Yoshihiro Nishimura, and the director of both films, Shinji Higuchi, did not respond well to their critics.
According to a translation, Nishimura responded to a comparison of the film's special effects with Hollywood's standards, "I'm sorry, but deciding what movies to see based on their budget and comparing everything to Hollywood, that's like how some people feel secure when buying Okame natto when they go to the supermarket." For the record, natto are fermented soybeans, and Okame...I have no idea. If any of my Japanese viewers want to explain what that is, let me know so I can correct my explanation. But apparently, people are very peculiar about it for some reason. I'm not that familiar with Japanese food, so I can't explain why.
However, the real criticism came from the hardcore fans of the original source material with complaints of all the characters they got rid of or replaced, as well as other major changes that were made to the movie.
You should NOT watch these films as your intro to Attack on Titan. Watch the anime or read the manga first. If you really want to watch these movies, do it AFTER you do one or both of those two things. These movies are a disgrace to Attack on Titan, and while Part 1 felt like a slap in the face to hardcore fans, Part 2 felt like a punch in the gut.
Well, that's my review! Stay tuned for next week where I review...Supernatural: The Animated Series.
So now that we've saved our sanity thanks to One Punch Man, it's time to get ready to lose it again. I promised this review for a while, and here it is: Attack on Titan Part 2 - End of the World.
I'm not going to waste any time with this, so if you haven't read my review of Part 1, I STRONGLY suggest you read it, as from this point on, it's full spoilers ahead.
The movie opens up with a recap of Part 1. Same animation, same footage, same...pretty much everything for about ten minutes. Which would have been a great idea if it didn't feel like one of those "Previously on..." things you see in TV shows. And even those aren't that long; they're usually anywhere from thirty seconds to one or two minutes. Not to mention that there really wasn't anything worth remembering about the first film, so that whole ten minutes or so was entirely POINTLESS.
And I normally wouldn't be this uptight about it, if it wasn't for the fact that Part 1 was an abomination of a film and a disgrace to Attack on Titan, and we had to relive that movie for the first ten minutes of Part 2.
OK, enough of that. I complained about Part 1 already. Let's keep this on track.
Oh, and there's a flashback that actually ties in with the anime. It's Eren as a young child and his father injecting him with a serum before his mother intervenes, then the police come and chaos ensues. And...that's basically it. To be fair, that's all the anime gave us, too, so I guess it's not that bad.
So our movie really starts shortly after the first one ended, and we see that Eren has been captured by Commander Kubal and his squadron and has been put in a straightjacket. At least, I think it's a straightjacket. It looks like a cross between what people in psych wards wear and those jackets magicians use for escape tricks.
Anyway, Kubal and co. believe that Eren is a threat to humanity, as he can turn into a Titan. So they ask him the big question: Titan or human? Guns are pointed at Eren and everything; he is about to be executed.
Eren, however, tries to convince everyone that he's human. And even though his comrades witnessed him wipe out A BUNCH of Titans and had caused NO HUMAN CASUALTIES WHATSOEVER as a Titan, one person, Souda, jumps to his defense. Unfortunately, in the midst of explaining stuff about the Titans and even revealing Eren had a brother at one point, one of Kubal's soldiers shoots and kills him before he can say anymore.
First off, WHY did Souda defend Eren? I mean, I'm sure Eren much appreciated it and everything, but even Mikasa, who was supposed to be Eren's girlfriend (seriously, Mr. Isayama? You went with this angle?), didn't defend him. Armin defended him, but Kubal and co. were all, "Eren turned into a Titan, we believe you can turn on us, so you deserve to croak." And that doesn't really make much sense, but I'll address why later with my other complaints.
Next thing we know, this other Titan, the Armored Titan, busts through the roof of the building that they're all in, destroys the top of the building, and causes a bunch of deaths. Kubal is killed (RIP character we didn't really know or care much about) along with a few other people, as this Titan that seems to be intelligent takes Eren out and walks away after receiving a "death glare" from Mikasa. And I put quotes around death glare because it looks like a cross between a pout and a death glare. Not to mention that that was pretty wimpy on the Titan's part. But we'll get to all my complaining later. Because there is A LOT of it.
So Eren wakes up in this bunker (which looks more like a psych ward) and finds Shikishima (the movie's version of Captain Levi FREAKING Ackerman) is there. Shikishima explains the origin of the Titans through Apple TV (I swear, this is product placement for Apple TV; the remote is right there in the shot. I'm also pretty sure I saw footage from Super 8 in this scene). This wasn't addressed in the anime, but was somewhat revealed in the manga. And because this hasn't been addressed in the anime yet, this is a blog about anime and not manga, and this review is full spoilers ahead, I can tell you all about it! Yay!
Origins: The Titans were actually human beings who were used as test subjects in military experiments. Unfortunately for the scientists conducting the experiment, something went wrong, and the humans turned into these massive Titans. And because the definition of insanity (you know, keep trying the same way on something that clearly doesn't work and hope for a different outcome) is something that is clearly unknown to these scientists, these experiments continued for decades. It turned into a disaster for mankind as what was apparently a virus that could rapidly multiply turned humans into mindless Titans.
Anyway, after the origins are explained via Apple TV and what I'm convinced is footage from Super 8 (really?), they're somehow sitting on beach chairs in another place. No, I don't get how that happened.
Shikishima then asks Eren to reflect on one question: how to destroy the Titans. Shikishima continues to explain that the virus made the Titans immortal and able to adapt to temperature and weather. Since they have no need to eat or drink, the Titans are near invincible. The virus never stopped developing, so it also made the Titans ageless and immortal.
Eren realizes that the one person who knows how to destroy the Titans is his father, who's dead (well, we think he is at any rate; the flashback left things pretty unclear when it ended), but the interesting thing here is that Shikishima refers to Eren's father as his own father, too, revealing that he and Eren are brothers (hello, plot twist...I think. There were a few typos in the subtitles, so whether the subbers meant "your" or "our" is unknown, especially considering the audio was in Russian and not the original Japanese). Not only that, but Eren's father was the one who created the Titan experiment.
So a while later, Shikishima and Eren meet up with the rest of the Scouting Regiment, who picked up a bomb from a district that they're planning to use to blow up parts of the walls so the Titans can't get in (which worked so well before, right?). We then get Shikishima's real sinister plan: he wants to launch a coup (is that the right spelling? French words like that always get me, so I'm not sure) against the government, who wanted to keep the people in the walls and used the Titans as a way to instill fear in the people. Eren isn't having any of that, so we get to watch Eren get his ass handed to him on a silver platter by Shikishima, before Shikishima reveals that he is...the Armored Titan.
Granted, the transformation scenes don't look that great, but they lead to THE BEST PART OF BOTH PARTS OF THE MOVIE. Full Titan vs. Titan action. This fight scene was freaking AMAZING, even though it was only about two minutes, and as much as I want to go on about it...the bad parts of the film do outweigh the good.
After Eren kills Shikishima, he stays in Titan form and decides to go along with the plan as he carries the bomb up the wall with a little difficulty, but manages to do it with encouragement from Mikasa. After he's taken out of the Titan and returned to human form, we see that Kubal has, in fact, SURVIVED about a thousand tons of rock falling on him. That would have turned anyone into a pancake. ANYONE. But apparently, this leads us to another realization: Kubal is a Titan-shifter as well. And he can't just become any Titan, but he can become...the Colossal Titan.
Yeah, that crappy as heck CGI abomination from the first part? That was Kubal. And because the rest of this basically makes no sense, the short version is that Shikishima somehow survived and decides to go back into Titan form and sacrifice himself by blowing up the wall, himself, and Kubal as the Colossal Titan. Our "heroes" look over and see the outside of the walls, and the credits roll.
So...was this as bad as the first movie? No. Was it worse than the first movie? Yes. Rating of Part 2: 0 out of 5. Rating of both films as a whole: 0 out of 10.
Why: Holy frick, I felt like I was watching Mortal Kombat: Annihilation when I was watching this because of the horrible CGI. There was almost no plot, I couldn't really care about any of the characters, and the story just seemed like it was going nowhere. So many characters died, and you couldn't really feel bad about it, because they were either given little to no screen time, or they had little character development.
It was hard to judge the acting with this, because the only subbed version of this I could find had Russian audio and not Japanese (seriously, I was so desperate I would have settled for a version without subtitles as long as it had Japanese audio). But out of all the actors in this, I'd say Satomi Ishihara was the best, and Kiko Mizuhara was the worst. Satomi Ishihara had Hanji Zoe's character spot-on in this, and was actually pretty funny. But Kiko Mizuhara did NOTHING in either movie. I felt like I was watching Kristen Stewart act. She just pouted the whole time.
The one character I actually really wanted to enjoy in this was Armin, played by Kanata Hongo. But even HE did next to nothing. Actually, that's not entirely true. He did have the guts to stand up to Shikishima and threaten to detonate the bomb, which would kill himself, his comrades, and Shikishima. He was also a brilliant strategist and I felt like Kanata Hongo actually played the part pretty well, despite the bad writing.
But the bad writing, directing, and CGI are what totally drag this movie down. Sure, you can blame it on the acting all you want, but when you have a script that's bad with no direction, no plot, and no organization whatsoever, your movie is basically screwed. You can't even say it's one of those movies that's so bad it's good. These movies are so bad that they're AWFUL. They are a disgrace to Attack on Titan.
You know the Star Wars Holiday Special? The project that George Lucas was personally ashamed of? I'm surprised that the writers and directors don't feel that way about these movies. Especially when you consider that the second film did even WORSE in the box office than the first one did. The special effects director, Yoshihiro Nishimura, and the director of both films, Shinji Higuchi, did not respond well to their critics.
According to a translation, Nishimura responded to a comparison of the film's special effects with Hollywood's standards, "I'm sorry, but deciding what movies to see based on their budget and comparing everything to Hollywood, that's like how some people feel secure when buying Okame natto when they go to the supermarket." For the record, natto are fermented soybeans, and Okame...I have no idea. If any of my Japanese viewers want to explain what that is, let me know so I can correct my explanation. But apparently, people are very peculiar about it for some reason. I'm not that familiar with Japanese food, so I can't explain why.
However, the real criticism came from the hardcore fans of the original source material with complaints of all the characters they got rid of or replaced, as well as other major changes that were made to the movie.
You should NOT watch these films as your intro to Attack on Titan. Watch the anime or read the manga first. If you really want to watch these movies, do it AFTER you do one or both of those two things. These movies are a disgrace to Attack on Titan, and while Part 1 felt like a slap in the face to hardcore fans, Part 2 felt like a punch in the gut.
Well, that's my review! Stay tuned for next week where I review...Supernatural: The Animated Series.
Hey guys, kanna here! Well, my exams are done, I aced my classes, I'm now 21 years old (happy birthday to me~), and life is good! Here's the first Anime Monday of 2016!
So, this was originally going to be a review of Ghost in the Shell. And while I have reviewed anime that were primarily geared towards guys in the past, this was one that...well, for lack of better phrasing, did not have a large feminine audience (there was one, it was just...well, not that big).
Not only that, but it originally started out as a manga...for mature audiences. And I don't know about you guys, but unless I get a request to review an anime based off of a manga for mature audiences, I'm not reviewing it. I couldn't even post a picture of the POSTER without photoshopping a freaking censor on there.
Aside from that, I felt that the majority of that review just would have been me ranting about Hollywood's constant whitewashing in that they cast Scarlett Johansson to play the Japanese lead, as well as ranting about the rest of the whitewashing that was more than likely to occur. I'm just thankful that M. Night Shyamalan isn't directing this, although all this whitewashing is really making me think of his movie, The Last Airbender, where there was whitewashing galore. *shudders*
So then I thought to myself, "Kanna, what can you review that won't piss off your readers and isn't meant for mature audiences?"
Note: While I do have a super rough idea of the age range of who reads my blog, and am aware that an anime meant for mature audiences would probably be okay, I also want my blog to be safe for younger readers. If I ever venture into the MA (mature audience) realm of anime, I'll make sure to put MA before the title of the post so that people who want to avoid it know that they can.
So I put up a post on my Facebook and asked for suggestions, and sure enough, who else but Whalley suggested...One-Punch Man!
So, let's get started with development, as this wasn't...shall we say, traditional for most anime adaptations, and certainly something I haven't heard of with regards to an anime.
One-Punch Man started out as a webcomic created by a mangaka named ONE (yes, it's a pseudonym and no, I don't know his real name). This is interesting in that most manga get serialized in different magazines like Shonen Jump or published into tankobon volumes right away. I hadn't heard of a webmanga before. Anyway, the webmanga was published online in 2009 and received 7.9 million hits by November 2012.
Due to the INSANE popularity this webmanga was getting, a mangaka named Yusuke Murata contacted ONE with a proposal to redraw the comic for digital publication on Weekly Young Jump's spin-off manga website, Young Jump Web Comics. The first chapter of the manga was published June 14, 2012, and has 104 chapters as of November 2015. Note that I have NOT been reading the manga, so I don't know how many chapters it has as of the time I'm writing this.
With the manga having such an insane popularity, you can bet that an anime adaptation was in the works. And sure enough, it was. With animation from animation studio Madhouse (you might recognize them from anime like Cardcaptor Sakura, Claymore, Chobits, and Parasyte, among many others), direction from Shingo Natsume, and writing from Tomohiro Suzuki, the series premiered in Japan on October 5, 2015.
So, going into this, I wasn't sure about the animation. I mean, Madhouse is great, and they've done the animation for a lot of anime that I really like. But, as much as I hate to say this, I feel that some of the shows that they did animation for were hit or miss, like Claymore. Now, with regards to Cardcaptor Sakura, you could argue that it was the late '90s and animation wasn't what it is today. And that is a valid argument.
But when you have series like Claymore and Parasyte that came out a few years later--Parasyte in particular--that argument is no longer valid. Animation has evolved, and the fight scenes just grew increasingly hard to follow. And because of that, you can clearly spot the weakness that Madhouse has. And that is animating fight scenes so that people can follow them. So, with an action anime like One-Punch Man, I was a little nervous going into it, because I thought the fight scenes would be hard to follow. But we'll get to that later.
The series is set in Japan, in a fictional city known as City Z (don't ask; I didn't write it). In this world, there are strange monsters that mysteriously appear and cause disasters. However, they are taken down by our hero, Saitama, a hero who can defeat the monsters with a single punch (hence the title). But Saitama gets bored of his powers because of his overwhelming strength. So he goes out to find opponents who are much stronger than he is.
On Saitama's adventures, he meets friends, enemies, and even gains a disciple. He even joins an organization to gain fame for fighting evil, known as the Heroes Association. However, Saitama struggles to gain respect due to his plain appearance and is even accused of being a counterfeit hero. So the series basically shows how he grows in personality.
So, now that that's done, let's talk characters!
Saitama: The hero of the story. He kind of reminds me of one of those heroes from Greek mythology in how he's strong, but gets bored of his super strength. I figured that would be a plus, but it wasn't. He's humanized, which is great. He experiences human thoughts and feelings, and while he's built up as this tough guy who is bored of his super strength, he still experiences a lot of the emotions that humans go through. And you could argue that he is human...to an extent. It kind of depends on what this series' definition of a human being is, and that's a little unclear. So...is he a mutant? No idea. But I like that they humanized him.
Because the story mainly revolves around Saitama and there are too many other characters to talk about, I'll just get to the rating part of it.
Rating: 9.5/10
Why: Look, this really is a great series, and as nervous about it as I was going into it, I was surprised that I actually enjoyed it and am hopeful for a second season, which it will hopefully get, assuming Madhouse makes enough money off of it. Madhouse has had a few bombs over the years, but I'm hopeful for this series. I really am.
The voice acting was pretty good, and I was surprised to see that Kousuke Toriumi, Mamoru Miyano, and Yuki Kaji were among the cast. Of course, they were the only three I'd heard of and recognized before I looked up the voice cast for this anime. But, as per usual, they did not disappoint.
The interesting thing is, the title is actually a play on words. In Japan, there is a children's character known as Anpanman, and the title is actually a play on words of that character's name. The word for punch in Japanese is literally translated to panchi and is sometimes shortened to pan. Pretty clever, and good for marketing. Anpanman is a long-running children's character in Japan, so I'm sure that it definitely brought the nostalgia factor in for adults who caught on to the wordplay. Talk about good marketing! The word "one" when transliterated becomes "wan," so the title in Japanese is literally Wanpanman.
The music is pretty great, too. The opening for the series is THE HERO！！〜怒れる拳に火をつけろ〜 ("THE HERO!!~Set Fire to the Furious Fist~") by JAM Project, and the ending is 星より先に見つけてあげる ("I'll Find It Before the Stars for You") by Hiroko Moriguchi. While I'm not so sure if you've heard of JAM Project (they did a lot of music for anime, but none that I've seen), You may have heard of Hiroko Moriguchi if you saw the movie, Mobile Suit Gundam F91, as she performed both the opening and ending songs for it.
There were a few elements of the anime I wasn't a particular fan of, however, like the story itself. The story reminded me a little too much of Greek mythology, and I was really hoping for something with a little more originality. While it's okay if you want to base something off of something else, you also want to have some creativity in there. And I feel like that was slightly lacking. Then again, this was meant to be a parody of the shonen genre, so it's possible I'm overthinking this.
Well, although it was short, that was One-Punch Man! Next time on Anime Mondays (which, now that I have better lighting, will hopefully be a video): either Attack on Titan Part II: End of the World or Akatsuki no Yona!
Til next time! ~k
Fun fact: This manga got nominated for an EISNER AWARD for the category BEST US EDITION OF INTERNATIONAL MATERIAL -- ASIA. That is huge for a manga. While it might not have won, it definitely made the manga HUGE in the USA.
So, this was originally going to be a review of Ghost in the Shell. And while I have reviewed anime that were primarily geared towards guys in the past, this was one that...well, for lack of better phrasing, did not have a large feminine audience (there was one, it was just...well, not that big).
Not only that, but it originally started out as a manga...for mature audiences. And I don't know about you guys, but unless I get a request to review an anime based off of a manga for mature audiences, I'm not reviewing it. I couldn't even post a picture of the POSTER without photoshopping a freaking censor on there.
Aside from that, I felt that the majority of that review just would have been me ranting about Hollywood's constant whitewashing in that they cast Scarlett Johansson to play the Japanese lead, as well as ranting about the rest of the whitewashing that was more than likely to occur. I'm just thankful that M. Night Shyamalan isn't directing this, although all this whitewashing is really making me think of his movie, The Last Airbender, where there was whitewashing galore. *shudders*
So then I thought to myself, "Kanna, what can you review that won't piss off your readers and isn't meant for mature audiences?"
Note: While I do have a super rough idea of the age range of who reads my blog, and am aware that an anime meant for mature audiences would probably be okay, I also want my blog to be safe for younger readers. If I ever venture into the MA (mature audience) realm of anime, I'll make sure to put MA before the title of the post so that people who want to avoid it know that they can.
So I put up a post on my Facebook and asked for suggestions, and sure enough, who else but Whalley suggested...One-Punch Man!
So, let's get started with development, as this wasn't...shall we say, traditional for most anime adaptations, and certainly something I haven't heard of with regards to an anime.
One-Punch Man started out as a webcomic created by a mangaka named ONE (yes, it's a pseudonym and no, I don't know his real name). This is interesting in that most manga get serialized in different magazines like Shonen Jump or published into tankobon volumes right away. I hadn't heard of a webmanga before. Anyway, the webmanga was published online in 2009 and received 7.9 million hits by November 2012.
Due to the INSANE popularity this webmanga was getting, a mangaka named Yusuke Murata contacted ONE with a proposal to redraw the comic for digital publication on Weekly Young Jump's spin-off manga website, Young Jump Web Comics. The first chapter of the manga was published June 14, 2012, and has 104 chapters as of November 2015. Note that I have NOT been reading the manga, so I don't know how many chapters it has as of the time I'm writing this.
With the manga having such an insane popularity, you can bet that an anime adaptation was in the works. And sure enough, it was. With animation from animation studio Madhouse (you might recognize them from anime like Cardcaptor Sakura, Claymore, Chobits, and Parasyte, among many others), direction from Shingo Natsume, and writing from Tomohiro Suzuki, the series premiered in Japan on October 5, 2015.
So, going into this, I wasn't sure about the animation. I mean, Madhouse is great, and they've done the animation for a lot of anime that I really like. But, as much as I hate to say this, I feel that some of the shows that they did animation for were hit or miss, like Claymore. Now, with regards to Cardcaptor Sakura, you could argue that it was the late '90s and animation wasn't what it is today. And that is a valid argument.
But when you have series like Claymore and Parasyte that came out a few years later--Parasyte in particular--that argument is no longer valid. Animation has evolved, and the fight scenes just grew increasingly hard to follow. And because of that, you can clearly spot the weakness that Madhouse has. And that is animating fight scenes so that people can follow them. So, with an action anime like One-Punch Man, I was a little nervous going into it, because I thought the fight scenes would be hard to follow. But we'll get to that later.
The series is set in Japan, in a fictional city known as City Z (don't ask; I didn't write it). In this world, there are strange monsters that mysteriously appear and cause disasters. However, they are taken down by our hero, Saitama, a hero who can defeat the monsters with a single punch (hence the title). But Saitama gets bored of his powers because of his overwhelming strength. So he goes out to find opponents who are much stronger than he is.
On Saitama's adventures, he meets friends, enemies, and even gains a disciple. He even joins an organization to gain fame for fighting evil, known as the Heroes Association. However, Saitama struggles to gain respect due to his plain appearance and is even accused of being a counterfeit hero. So the series basically shows how he grows in personality.
So, now that that's done, let's talk characters!
Saitama: The hero of the story. He kind of reminds me of one of those heroes from Greek mythology in how he's strong, but gets bored of his super strength. I figured that would be a plus, but it wasn't. He's humanized, which is great. He experiences human thoughts and feelings, and while he's built up as this tough guy who is bored of his super strength, he still experiences a lot of the emotions that humans go through. And you could argue that he is human...to an extent. It kind of depends on what this series' definition of a human being is, and that's a little unclear. So...is he a mutant? No idea. But I like that they humanized him.
Because the story mainly revolves around Saitama and there are too many other characters to talk about, I'll just get to the rating part of it.
Rating: 9.5/10
Why: Look, this really is a great series, and as nervous about it as I was going into it, I was surprised that I actually enjoyed it and am hopeful for a second season, which it will hopefully get, assuming Madhouse makes enough money off of it. Madhouse has had a few bombs over the years, but I'm hopeful for this series. I really am.
The voice acting was pretty good, and I was surprised to see that Kousuke Toriumi, Mamoru Miyano, and Yuki Kaji were among the cast. Of course, they were the only three I'd heard of and recognized before I looked up the voice cast for this anime. But, as per usual, they did not disappoint.
The interesting thing is, the title is actually a play on words. In Japan, there is a children's character known as Anpanman, and the title is actually a play on words of that character's name. The word for punch in Japanese is literally translated to panchi and is sometimes shortened to pan. Pretty clever, and good for marketing. Anpanman is a long-running children's character in Japan, so I'm sure that it definitely brought the nostalgia factor in for adults who caught on to the wordplay. Talk about good marketing! The word "one" when transliterated becomes "wan," so the title in Japanese is literally Wanpanman.
The music is pretty great, too. The opening for the series is THE HERO！！〜怒れる拳に火をつけろ〜 ("THE HERO!!~Set Fire to the Furious Fist~") by JAM Project, and the ending is 星より先に見つけてあげる ("I'll Find It Before the Stars for You") by Hiroko Moriguchi. While I'm not so sure if you've heard of JAM Project (they did a lot of music for anime, but none that I've seen), You may have heard of Hiroko Moriguchi if you saw the movie, Mobile Suit Gundam F91, as she performed both the opening and ending songs for it.
There were a few elements of the anime I wasn't a particular fan of, however, like the story itself. The story reminded me a little too much of Greek mythology, and I was really hoping for something with a little more originality. While it's okay if you want to base something off of something else, you also want to have some creativity in there. And I feel like that was slightly lacking. Then again, this was meant to be a parody of the shonen genre, so it's possible I'm overthinking this.
Well, although it was short, that was One-Punch Man! Next time on Anime Mondays (which, now that I have better lighting, will hopefully be a video): either Attack on Titan Part II: End of the World or Akatsuki no Yona!
Til next time! ~k
Fun fact: This manga got nominated for an EISNER AWARD for the category BEST US EDITION OF INTERNATIONAL MATERIAL -- ASIA. That is huge for a manga. While it might not have won, it definitely made the manga HUGE in the USA.
