Category: Anime/Manga

Thundercats Episode 03 – Minute-by-Minute Impressions and Thoughts

When am I going to meet a hot pirate queen?!

So I was quite impressed with the first 2 episodes as well, as described in golliz’s post. A lot of people have also been raising the point that Avatar’s success is a watershed moment similar to that of B:TAS and Thundercats is the first western series to start reflecting the impact on design and conceptualization. I can’t say for certain how much of an effect (if any) that has and how long this halo effect will linger over the American animation industry. I see some styling in the art that could possibly be attributed to it, but the writing and character designs don’t strike me as particularly Avatar-ish. Heck, to be brutally honest I think the only really clear Avatarism was the blessed decision to leave Snarf as a Momo-esque gremlin clone instead, to the relief of everyone sane over the age of 10. As much as I would I like to say B:TAS completely changed animation in the West, the truth is that for a good long while after it arrived it was still the Timmverse carrying the banner of a more sophiscated palette all by its lonesome, if you discount the odd unusual offering such as Gargoyles. In fact, I don’t think there was much of an effect until Avatar arrived. So colour me a skeptic until I see more concrete evidence (or more episodes!) that there will be knockon improvement in quality for art and writing for the next 5, 10 years. Or none.

As for the opening pair of of eps, there were some truly weird oddities, like the Naruto-style clerics, and there was some less-than-impressive CG for an important scene, but in a general sense, the animation, staging and set pieces were pleasant surprises. The first THUNDERCATS HO! moment with Lion-O and the Sword of Omens was truly a mark-out moment for me. So let’s roll onto episode three, running commentary style and see how things go.

Last we left our power trio they were escaping from Mumm-Ra’s clutches after GandalfJaga bought them some time. With Lion-O getting his Bambi Moment, the plot markers are set for a HOT BLOOD HERO’S JOURNEY. So, without further ado, let’s start….

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0:05 HO! It’s still the old theme….just very short and remixed

2:15 Anakin? That you?

2:35 Team 7 exiting Minas Tirith

3:35 “I’m not anti-children, I’m anti-brat”

3:40 SERIOUSLY? They’re doing a nyaaaaan~? Is this simulcasting in Japan?

4:10 AHHHHHH New Zealand

5:00 “Pffft…we don’t need no stinkin’ food when I’m 15min from getting my plot epiphany”

5:15 HOW THE HELL DID THEY MISS THAT ARCH? They’re effin’ cats!

5:40 Someone tell the production crew about the viscosity of sand/silt

6:15 Where the hell’s that accent from? Scotland? India?

6:30 NO PARROT. I AM DISAPPOINT

6:50 This is so Dark Sun….the show is really wearing its influences in a bloody obvious fashion

7:20 CORNELIUS TUNA. And damn, the wiki redirects too

7:25 You know it’s not going to happen, but why did they have to dangle that in front of us! Sheesh

7:40 Ah right the perennial favorite of Japanese animation

7:45 MOBY DICK (TENTACLES). Make your best Khan the Catfish joke.

7:50 OK, the Nebuchadnezzar now? What next, a map leading to water tattooed on someone’s back?

8:35 Someone is probably writing a Cheetara/sea kaiju fanfic as we speak

9:05 “Yes, Ishmael, grab a spare harpoon and let’s go fishin’!”

9:15 They’re bitin…….I need two palms to cover my face right now

10:05 Area cleaning comes AFTER the puke

10:50 Heavy-handed male bonding. At least, I hope Tunaface is male

11:45 This cook knows the value of foie gras

13:20 I suspect we’ll be getting a lot of sibling rivalry moments. Just wait till they start hitting on that piece of tail

14:10 What’s all that talk about mystical tech? No one is surprised by the Millennium Falcon turrets?!

16:45 CREW OVERBOARD

17:00 Half expecting a Jaws ripoff here, considering how many “influences” (ahem) there are throughout this ep

17:25 KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN TEH CATFISH

17:50 AHAB OVERBOARD

18:15 They can’t shut their gobs either for feasting or talking it seems

18:35 SQUISHIE SHAI HULUD IS BREAKING FAST

18:55 Who didn’t see THAT coming

19:00 THE LISAN AL GAIB HAS MADE IT RAIN, PWAISE BE!

19:35 Now I’m getting a bit of the World Destruction vibe here

19:50 PITCH THEM OVERBOARD. PLEASE.

21:10 Finally, now that we’re done with the capsule cliche character development nicely tied up in 1 ep, plot development!

—–§—–

Man, considering the grimdark evident in the season opener, this was not the kind of episode I would choose to do as a followup, whether in tone or plot. Not only was it a very silly parody of everyone’s favorite whale hunt, the extremely heavy handed treatment of Lion-O’s cliche descent into the “Dark Side” was followed by an all too cliche resolution. That in itself may or not be a big issue, but having handed Lion-O his epiphany on a platter with almost zero contribution from his party members certainly is one. It didn’t help that the two brats’s antics completely destroyed what little gravitas the plot treatment delivered. The whole thing just felt like characterization by numbers, and having ticked the checkbox, the episode then concluded sheepishly with a giant plot marker, as if to tell the audience, “Hey! Here’s what really important that will have bearing on the main plot thread!”

If we go back to that contentious topic of Avatar comparison again, this is a vastly different third episode compared to the Southern Air Temple. There’s a more steady and subtle buildup of the downer elements of Aang’s mindset in Avatar, cumulating in The Storm, 12 episodes in the show where the protagonist finally achieves his clarity of mind after exorcizing his inner demons. In contrast, the first three episodes of the new Thundercats just seems to highlight the fact that the great season opener seems more like a Lodoss-style hook to get the audience interested in the show first. I hope I’m being too cynical, but it’s not like anime in Japan isn’t notorious for starting with a bang first, followed by a disappointing mid-season crawl. Or perhaps I’m just overthinking all this, and THIS SHOW JUST NEEDS ITS PANTHRO. Just sayin’.

All in all, moderately groansworthy and quite a climbdown from the first pair of episodes. I’m still generally hopeful for the show, but I might have to scale down my expectations a tad. The art also seemed to take a minor hit, which doesn’t bode too well for the rest of the show. Hopefully it’s just an aberrant blip.

Dantalian no Shoka – Three Episode Catchup

illuminated manuscripts ftw

evil kidz wants to browbeat you with WORDS

river demon is too sensible to be involved in this caper

So I gave Dantalian 3 eps before I started doing an impressions writeup. The show uses the old trope of forbidden knowledge to drive the plot, with the lead character inheriting his grandfather’s estate (in Victorian settings) and his curious ward, a strange girl named Dalian that is the mystical custodian of an extradimensional supernatural library that houses a multitude of “Phantom Books”, which throughout human history have been unusual tomes of esoteric lore, sometimes containing secrets bordering on Stuff Mankind Was Not Meant To Know. (The theme of Phantom Books being everpresent throughout the sheer breadth of human civilization is reinforced in the 2nd ep, Madoka style, when a cuneiform tablet makes its grand appearance.)

Our lead, a dapper young lad named Huey, possesses the key to Dalian’s “lock” on the library, leading to hilarious stock footage segments each episode where he “unlocks” her literally, chastity belt style, to retrieve Phantom Books that allow him to nullify the threat unleashed by inadvertent usage of other Phantom Books still loose in the mortal world. We are not given any explanation of how Huey managed to possess the all-important key, but flashbacks indicate that he either knows more about the library that he lets on to Dalian, or is unaware of its true nature when he visited it in the past when he was a child.

The first 2 eps pretty much just gets the watcher accustomed to the plot conventions of the show, with Huey and Dalian doing their tag team operations to “fight” the Phantom Book of the Week. The third episode is interesting becauses it deviates from the formula, allowing me to establish a natural break to sum things up. It’s split into two minor stories, and while plotwise nothing much really happens and the action is pretty inconsequential, we get more characterization and the introduction of a “third wheel” character for the duo to play off on.

What is obvious is that from this moment on the show hews pretty closely to Gosick in terms of the treatment of its characters. Tsundere Dalian is shown to have a great love of candies and other sweet confectioneries, Huey is the male equivalent of Kujo and Camilla does the Avril act of being a whimsical good natured friend that may or may not have feelings for Huey. Fortunately for the show, everything else is a huge improvement. Instead of Scooby Dooby treatment of dark supernatural tales, we have the actual supernatural element in play for Dantalian. The lyrical treatment for drawing out the power and essence of books in each action finale is generally handled well and adds a touch of class to the setpieces, and is a much better concept than trying to play the Sherlockian angle with LAUGHABLY juvenile mystery whodunits.

The best improvement over Gosick is really Huey himself. For once the male lead handles himself well in tough situations, is a reasonable shot with a gun, keeps a cool head and generally does whatever an action lead needs to do in a competent fashion. It might not seem like much, but compared to the utter nincompoop and walking plot construct that is Kujo in Gosick, there’s a Herculan contrast. I could really do without the really pointed tsundere act that has Dalian mimicking Victorique, but it’s still not as blatant and her wit does shine through at great moments, like with the Journey to the West gag in the pic above. The OP is fantastic and the soundtrack does its job adequately in conveying gothic ambience, so I have no big issues on the music.

(As an aside…some may rage at the trollish resolution of the first half of the 3rd episode, but besides the amusement at otaku nerdraeging, I thought it was a particularly clever treatment of the plot material. Like a certain sci-fi epic that handles sandworms, hallucinogenic super drugs and the nature of prophecies, absolute knowledge just translates into absolute stasis where every future action is mapped rigidly stretching into infinity. Like the old street saying goes, the only winning strategy is not to play.)