Anime Discussion Thread - Page 1652

That might have been the best episode yet. We had seifuku Fear-chan, meido Fear-chan, cheongsam Fear-chan, nekkid Fear-chan, and Fear-chan being tentacle raped.

All the existing characters got a fair amount of screentime (though Shiraho probably got shafted the most ) and we got some new characters too. The next arc will probably deal a lot with Kirika and the Laboratory Kingdom or whatever it was called. That teacher guy is creepy as hell -_-

All that AND new OP and ED, love it.

I love how new conflicts are rising without it seeming forced (although the transition between arcs felt slightly awkward). They didn't play around with Fear's emotions this time, but the "no talent" theme is working, too. Episode needs more Shiraho because she's awesome (screw Konoha and Sovereignty). I hope she doesn't instantly become a side-character.

The president getting 100% screen time in the opening is meh, though D:

The character development is what annoyed me the most. The "main" heroine gets the first part of the film dedicated to her but you only get subtle hints about what kind of person she is. She gets essentially no back story and throughout the entire 2 hours, does not develop as a character at all. It's a mystery as to whether she is even struggling with the loss of a loved one or not, which is a huge fault in a movie that's supposed to be centered on that. The other 2 characters also get hardly any development. One of the guys "develops" but he changes constantly without any internal struggle being shown on screen. The result is a bipolar adolescent boy who is creepily following around a girl. The other guy, who seems to have the most drive in the story, actually seems to possibly be the main protagonist as he is the one who struggles most with death. But even at the end, it's unclear whether or not his views have changed and we only get a very short flashback to understand his pain.

The world which Shinkai created is...amazing, but he doesn't go anywhere with it. He constantly introduces characters, beliefs, myths, problems...but then they never come up again in the story. Normally in a movie or book, you would see the story unfold from different perspectives to build drama that the main protagonist is currently unaware of and then have everything come together in the end. Here, we get introductions to potential drama, threats, problems, etc, but then they never make an appearance again. Not only that, but even simple things that make me curious about the world he created are ignored. In short, it is like he put stuff in that was inspired by Mononoke but decided not to have it be significant at all, even though it was in Mononoke and the result is terrible. The world is very interesting, but we're told almost nothing about it.

Plot was terrible as well. There are two ways this could have been done. First: be like 5 cm/s where there is almost no plot but feelings, thoughts, and emotions are the crux of the story and where everything is told. Second: have an actual story. This didn't even really go down the middle. It lacked all the emotional value of 5 cm as well as a real story. There is no main villain or obstacle that must be overcome, only small ones. This would work in an adventure type setting but the point of the story is supposed to be emotions regarding death, which is hardly explored. At the same time, it's referenced all over the film but no real change in the characters can be clearly seen. Any changes that are made don't even make sense because internal struggles or even epiphanies are completely absent. Finally, when the end is reached, the movie introduces a super cliched moment which is then fixed very quickly by shouting your emotions. It felt really out of place for an "emotional" story. The ending was not even an ending. It was more like "we reached our goal so now the movie has to end." No conclusion at all.

Animation was of course absolutely beautiful and the highlight of the film. Really amazing and detailed. Music was good but honestly disappointed in Tenmon. Nothing really stood out, but I think this is more a result of nothing in the movie being too memorable so the music had no real impact compared to 5 cm. Overall, it was simply okay. Certainly, my expectations made it seem worse than it really is, but I really don't see this being anything special or even just good. And this is coming from me, who absolutely loved 5 cm/s, as well as most of Shinkai's other works. I could actually write a lot more in a much harsher way but I am restraining myself since I'm probably overreacting to how bad it is. The next movie I'm really excited for is Nanoha A's; since it's not new material, it shouldn't disappoint, but it's still ~2 years before I see that =/