2019 things ribka watched roundup
I did a post for everything within winter season, but nothing past, partially because... I just didn't... watch a lot of things. In between thesis tears of doom, Anvengers burnout and overall lackluster lineup, the list I was left with was quite short, but because my memory is awful, I will collect things here for posterity regardless.
Movies
John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum (OV)
I watched this movie twice within a few days, once in OV on opening day, and then again in German as part of a triple feature (my first time doing something like this). The latter I did mainly tbh because I wanted to see the first movie on the big screen, and what can I say but it still goes hard! The second and third movies, however, have their slightly dragging parts, although back to back the shift from "mostly down to earth first movie" to "hot beduine princes in the middle of the desert running a world-spanning assassin parallel society" seemed less crass somehow. Then in summer, I watched part 3 with Kay on Shybil, and we had a blast, which means the movie holds up better for me than part 2. The main reason for that, I guess, is that part 3 is just. Blatant anime fan pandering. I have no other words for it. If you want a glimpse into my yelling on the subject, knock yourself out, but I think it's enough to say that Charon does the Anime Glasses Push-Up(tm) like a complete badass. I am eagerly awaiting the next part in 2021, and hope that Jonathan won't really go to war with his dad :( Four best dogs out of five.
Spider-man Far From Home (OV)
This was the first MCU movie I didn't watch either on my own or with my Baywatch Marvel bros (who are only marginally aware of MCU things beyond the big movies), but with my library date and her circle of friends, so that was a fun experience! Many a fun discussion was had right after the movie, and reacting in sync to the Fury reveal was a great bonding activity. Nevertheless, the movie to me was still overshadowed to my utter exhaustion from Endgame, and the fact that they kept shoving Tony into the narrative at every moment didn't help. (Same goes for Happy and his sudden romance with Aunt May :') ) His looming presence often was to the detriment of the fun Eurotrip vibes, and I guess we now can say that Tony caused like half of all Marvel villains. Congratulations. The likable cast and perfectly timed gags (getting hit by an ICE? The Dutch football fans? The teacher who just. doesn't give a shit??) still made the movie a breezy and fun experience, though. I did like Quentin a lot, even though I knew he'd be the villain, but watching him handle both roles was a delight and I'm sad to see him go. I was somewhat surprised to see Fury so seemingly incompetent and chipper, and wondered if it was just them serving more of what people loved so much in Captain Marvel, character continuity be damned, but it turning out to be Telos in disguise was genius, because to him, that IS his impression of Fury's character. Also, I'm so happy that even twenty years later, it seems they are still on good terms!! Telos is such a good bean :D Like the first MCU Spider-man movie, I don't have the urge to rewatch, but it was definitely a fun watch I thoroughly enjoyed, and one that made me look forward to the future, although sadly the two immediate follow-ups (Spider-man and Captain Marvel) won't be out anytime soon). It still felt odd to have this one be the ending to the MCU as of 2019, though. Four surprise DB cameos out of five.
Maquia
I thought I had already followed every German anime outlet on social media, but it was only thanks to a surprise instagram ad that I was notified of an anime movie screening in my local cinema, which just really makes me doubt how well these firms use their existing outlets. Anyway, it was for Maquia, the movie written by Okada who's most famous for personal drama and also Anohana, which I have to admit I've never watched. Everyone on twitter who had seen it in either Japan or the UK would not shut up about how great it was, so I went on very short notice, not expecting much (I was under the vague impression it might have some incestbait romance - which turned out to be so absolutely wrong). Following a girl from a near immortal people who after the descruction of her homeland ends up taking in a human boy as a surrogate child, the movie very much is a meditation on parenthood, letting children go and finding meaning in your own life after this separation, while at the same time being a swan song of a magical world devoured by the mundane reality of industrialisation and progress. Maquia is kind without being annoyingly naive, and every of the important people that accompany her path through live are complex but endearing in their own way. I can sincerely say I hardly ever rooted for a happy ending this fiercely, even though it was always bound to be bittersweet. I'm very glad I trusted the hype, because this truly was a beautiful movie in every sense of the word. Five out of five knights accepting the title of just friend with dignity.
One Piece: Stampede (OV)
Since other anime publishers are better at advertising, I found out that this One Piece movie, too, would be getting an OV screening here shortly after Japanese release, and this time, it even worked on the first try with the subtitles, whoo! While I am keeping up with One Piece week by week, I have a bit of a gap in between Skypia and the 3D2Y arc, and this movie is just pure undiluted fanservice. There is the thinest of story veneers, but mostly, it's just about getting to see the characters of the current timeline fight/team-up/both, and some of the cameos no doubt went over my head (although I will admit that seeing my two favourite swordboys making an appearance was well appreciated indeed). I did enjoy the fact that the movie just caved in to fan demands of pairing poor Trafalgar Law up with Ruffy again, RIP poor Trafo's sanity. Unfortunately the escalating power levels ended in all of the fighting a giant CGI monstrosity, because Toei still hasn't realised that sometimes less CGI is just... more. Unlike Film Gold which I maintain could work even for someone only superficially familiar with the series as a stand alone, this one is really just for the fans, and as an anniversary celebration, that's fine. Three sword-styles out of five.
They shall never grow old (OV)
Following up fun anime movies with depressing World War I documentaries like eyyyyy that's my life, mate. The movie got a screening in Germany half a year later after it's release for some reason, and someone from my WWI exhibition group sent out a mail suggesting we all go see it together. I couldn't make it to that screening, but considering I was in the final stages of writing a thesis on WWI, I decided to catch the matinee screening on a sunday morning. The movie is just original footage that has been coloured after the fact, which results in this weird cognitive dissonance - everything you've seen from that time period was in black and white always, so now seeing it in colour just feels jarringly more recent. The narration is exclusively taken from interviews with WWI veterans conducted after WWII even, although I have to say that the selection was somewhat strange. Having gone through the IWM audio archives myself, I do know for a fact that there are many devastating reports on the experiences by the soldiers, but the movie included a surprising amount of those that were pretty much "Yeah, well, the whole thing was an adventure! I don't regret signing up! It made me the man I am today!". Maybe it was supposed to be ironic when paired with visual imagery, but the overall impression it left me with was somewhat bewildered to see such positive feedback (which I know some people honestly held) featured so prominently. The fact that the movie presented an exclusively British perspective lead to some awkward chuckles when it got to them describing the German enemy - my favourite part being when someone retold that one time they captured some Bavarian soldiers and they told them that they would soon be relieved by the Prussians, jsyk, and "give them hell". A, German empire things! Walking out of this utterly depressing movie into the scorching heat of July was just as discombulating, and I ended up feeling somewhat off center all day. I usually avoid war movies as best as I can, but it was a gripping experience if you have the stomach for it. Four history repeating.mp3 out of five.
Frozen 2
You may notice that this is the only movie I've watched in the second half year of 2019 - partially, that was that there was just event movies coming out and just general cinema exhaustion, partially just that in between thesis, traveling, internship and moving, I was simply busy. I had a list of indie movies I wanted to watch, including The Lighthouse (which a dick on tumblr spoiled me for, thanks for nothing) and Parasite, but since those were running only in the tiny cinema that ironically is next door to my old flat, I somehow never ended up making the trip in November/December to catch them, you know, like a total idiot. I have them on my list of things I want to catch after home release, though. However, I did make it to see Frozen 2 in an afternoon showing (bc honestly, it's fun to watch it with a child audience). Jenny Nicholson did a great video on it, and yeah, the movie is bizarre when it comes to where the decided to take the story..? I am digging the water horse and main song enough to balance it out, but I'm glad I'm not the least bit invested in the story, because boy howdy was it weird. I'm pretty sure there were short notice rewrites? As it stands, it has some scenes that are surprisingly bleak for a Disney kids movie, though, and I wonder how many kids are now scared of the ocean. Three "Worst Song in a movie I've ever seen tho" out of five.
Knives Out
Yes, technically I saw this movie only yesterday, but it was released in 2019 originally, soooo. I'm always here for high budget murder mysteries, and this one got nothing but rave reviews, always with the tip that the less you know about it, the better, so I went in only knowing that it would have Daniel Craig and also Chris Evans (in a sweater). And am I ever glad I saw it knowing nothing, John Snow! Each time I thought I knew how the movie was going to work, it pulled a Martha car chase maneuver on me. Classical whodunnit, clearly, we now will get everyone's fake statements and- wait, no, we just learned how the murder happened and we're like one third in, what-- Ok, so it's a thriller, then, and it's about Bland getting the culprit to admit--- wait, is Blanc actually a dumbass? Also why is Chris Evans only showing up after the halfway point what is--- EVERYTHING IS HAPPENING SO MUCH??? It was a ride, and I found myself gobbling up the red herrings like a noob, and fully enjoying the experience. The movie found a great balance between poking for fun at mystery cliches with the pure set design alone (and the "... STATE TROOPER WARREN" line had me sobbing) and being a sincere love letter to the genre at the same time, and at the same time the movie doubled as a scathing social satire that nevertheless had genuine heart and treated its sympathetic characters with care. I won't be the last to state that I'm more than down for a second movie staring the world's best-worst private detective and his longsuffering police friend as they chew out Trump voters. He can bring Marta in for moral support!!!! Or just drop by for coffee sometimes and run the case by her while they play go!! Nothing but good things for these precious beans. Five IMMIGRANTS WE GET THE JOB DONE out of five.
Anime
Let's start with leftovers:
Dororo
... was such a letdown :') The original never had a proper ending, so it was obvious they would have to come up with their own, but I think they just didn't really know how to get there, and just... winged it. This show has the dumbest character deaths ever, and its attempt to in the second cours introduce as a moral conundrum and trolley problem "get your body back that your father sold to demons without your consent, also those demons still eat people BUT it means having to have your region undergo the same hardships every other region undergoes, because whoops it's the sengoku period" was just... Maybe I'm not buddhist enough to enjoy this show. Well, we'll always have Paris I mean the wonderful first OP/ED. Two out of five spines made from wood and twine jfc HOW WAS THIS EVER A CHOICE
Morose Monokean
I only had very vague memories of Dollar Store Brand Natsume season one, as I watched it while sick, and turns out in the half year since I've watched season two, I again forgot a lot about it until I re-read my chat with a fan of the series, oops :'D The second season actually moved the main plot forwards in introducing some key players and FINALLY having its main character ask... questions.... and then in the final arc, things just went entirely bonkers. The comments on crunchyroll clued me in that apparently, the anime deviated rather crassly from the manga in the final episode (we're not talking minor differences, but "did our main character just slaughter someone on screen or not", which.... is quite the important distinction), and since crunchyroll also hosts the manga on their site (although their manga reader is awful and they should feel bad about it), I ended up bingeing that one starting where the anime deviated. The story was much more coherent that way, and the overall mood less generic and genki, so that the turn to actual yokaislaughter didn't come out of nowhere. I initially wanted to keep up with the manga, but... forgot.... I think I might read it when it's ending, though, just to figure out why there are three Ashiya Sakaes, and how the Abe and Ashiya are connected in this universe. Three overprotective ancestral spirits out of five.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - Vento Aureo
My first JoJo watch (if we discount John Wick who IS A JOJO CONFIRMED) was a delight up until the very end! Not everything made sense to me, but I think that's just part of the experience, really. I had already been spoiled early on that my favourite would make it through and we'd get an amazing conclusion (although Polnareff in a tortoise was a surprise, I'll admit), but nevertheless the showdown had me on the edge of my seat. Giorno spent most of the show so far being a support rather than the main character in every interaction and fight, and while he is in the mafia and shown to be ruthless when threatened, seeing the healer of the party go absolutely bonkers in the final confrontation was quite a sight. A fate worse than death indeed. I'm somewhat sad that unlike the connected previous four seasons, Vento Aureo doesn't really have a sequel, but I guess we'll always have doujin. Five bodyguard romances out of five.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
My little taishou shounen manga that fills me with so many nostalgic feelings for first falling for Bleach got the anime it deserved, that's about all I can say. Ufotable made sure things looked absolutely fantastic, and to my great delight kept the heavily outlined style of the original, making it really stand out among the generic anime designs of the season. Ironically, I had put the movie (which was just the first five episodes/prologue cut into movie format) on my "what would you want to see at Akiba Pass Festival 2020" request sheet, and then it WAS screened in Germany, but I missed it bc I was galavanting around Paris with Kay and A :'D A worthwhile tradeoff, though, because as much as I enjoyed the anime, it really is just an animated version of the manga, and I mean that in the best and worst way. It didn't add much for me in the sense of a new experience, although I am looking forward to seeing Sakurai play Tomioka in upcoming arcs. As the manga is now drawing closer to its finale, this will be the first manga I've read weekly from beginning until end, and I suppose I will watch whatever new anime adaptation will come out (even if it'll make me cry buckets, like the upcoming Train Arc movie). Mostly I'm just happy that the show shone a spotlight on a manga that was undeservedly overlooked by the general fandom in my humble opinion. Five Boar-headed Bishounen out of five.
To the abandoned sacred beasts
a.k.a my hatewatch of the year, because I somehow always have them (even as I started dropping things more frequently these days). For a reason absolutely unknown to me, Crunchyroll heavily promoted the show, so I ended up watching all twelve episodes (also because it was one way to procrastinate half an hour of thesis writing each week), but it's just.... so bad :') The animation and designs being mediocre and looking as if they were form the mid 2000s was one thing, but also the entire show was just so heavy-handed. I kept seeing comments about how great the show was in showing PTSD and the often depressing afterlives of former military servicemen, but all of this was handled with the grace of a wrecking ball to the face. It doesn't help that the main villain is called Cain and is a literal cackling maniac vampire. The setting of American Civil War but with Monsters(tm) could have been really interesting, and I am known to love my PTSD soldiers with a heart of gold (toss a coin to your maritos, o kataphrakts of plentyyy), but this ain't it, chief. Let's not talk about the fanservice girl, either. Anyway, zero impact out of five.
Given
Since MAPPA seems to have decided to just put Yuri on Ice!!! as a franchise on, well, ice, other studios seem to be more than willing to put out BL adaptations for the mainstream market with a larger production value than in the past. Unfortunately, those BLs tend to be chockful of things that make me nope out faster than you can say "But it's not really assault because he actually likes it" and/or somehow still ripe with mid-2000s-Yaoi-seme/uke-cliches. Given in that regard was a nice surprise - I had read the manga at some point, and found it quite enjoyable (it helped that the manga never really advertised as being about music, so I wasn't let down by the abscence of, well, music, in the anime). The anime, while adding music which was quite impactful when it needed to, did simplify the character designs, though, which also lead to a loss of expressiveness unfortunately. That along with Mafuyu's utterly underwhelming voice actor (or that VA's choice of tone) lead to him being way more of a doormat than in the manga, rendering the relatability of his trauma pretty much nil. I ended up being way more into the older generation in the anime (it helped that it didn't yet cover the worst fuck boy third wheel), who also got the single best shot (which turns out was by a foreign animator freelancing! the world we live in). They get a whole movie dedicated to their complicated romance this year, and I hope it'll end with the happy ending the series' best boy deserves. Anyway, overall I'd recommend the manga over the anime everyday, just look up the song perfomances online. Nevertheless, I'm very happy to just see a good BL getting such a well-received and solid adaptation. Keep doing that. Three out of four seasons.
Lord El-Melloi 2 Case Files: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note
When I had moved to the dorm in 2011 and started exploring more Chinese Cartoons by the power of the internet, I relied heavily on pointers by people in the anime community, and gigguk's constant praise of Baccano! and Fate/Zero had me pick up these series early on (and he's spot on in recommending both, yes). I've tried following up with other Fate/______ things, I really did - but since I started out with the single best part (bless Urobutcher and his perchant for cool lesbians and gruff middle aged men), I just couldn't with high school drama and hetero nonsense (Fate/Stay Night) and too much fantasy bullshit (Fate/Apocrypha). I was vaguely aware that there was a game spin-off featuring adult Waver Velvet solving magical murder mysteries, and then Troyca did the anime adaptation (look, I have a soft spot for them, okay??), so I decided well, let's try with this one! And I ended up enjoying it a lot! Not because of the story per se - none of the mysteries made sense to me as someone not at all in the know when it comes to Fate's complicated magic system, and all the allusions to other Fate timelines flew entirely over my head (I caught the cameos because they were very hamfisted, but that was about it). No, the reason why I enjoyed it was exclusively watching adult Waver navigate an entire sharktank of talented mages out for his title/skills/head while still in eternal mourning for a guy who died centuries ago, and the occasional glimpses we got at the excitable and incredibly ambitious kid he used to be under all the layers of resigned and mellowed-out veneer of his Lord persona. The scene where he says he considers himself Iskander's subject? /clutches chest The scenes of him in Babylon near Iskander's grave? /clutches chest Him adopting a failed Saber clone as his student despite having lost to her in a way? /clutches chest Melvin fighting against being forever friendzoned due to Waver being hung up on Iskander and also buried up to his neck in self-loathing, but still sticking by his side because "someone should remember Waver before he became Lord El-Melloi"??? /yells about it loud enough to be heard across the entire English channel So yeah TL;DR: The story made no sense to me, but I'm here for the fanservice Troyca delivers everyday of the week, thank you. Three WYHDUNNITs out of five.
(Also, there is now an animated commercial for Fate/Strange Fake. Narita, when is this series done so we can get, like, an actual anime, just asking for a friend;;;)
Fire Force - Enn Enn no Shoubotai
Ohkubo was one of these people I could have seen at a panel on a con, but didn't, because I just really did not like Soul Eater. Part of that probably was the art style which wasn't vibing with my Kubo stan self of the time, but another part was that I just never really liked the human weapon concept, no matter how good the Studio BONES animation looked. I was vaguely aware that there was a new manga out by this author, and that there was some drama about him insunating Studio TRIGGER ripped off his ideas for their movie PROMARE which came out just before the anime adaptation of Fire Force premiered, and then part of the broadcast had to be delayed after the KyoAni arson tragedy. This production had a rough start, is what I'm saying, and it's a bit of a miracle that despite poor sales, it's getting a second season. I had only seen few still images and thought that the main character looked like your typical gung-ho shounen prota, so imagine my surprise when he turned out to be a softspoken, reasonable and obedient kid just trying his best(tm) while living in an absolutely nightmare-ish world. Three things really stood out to me about Fire Force - the stellar animation that managed to get the best out of the Shaft aesthetic without overplaying it, the cast of incredibly likeable characters who actually interact with each other in supportive and believable ways, and the execution of daytime horror in a way I haven't seen anime do maybe ever. Despite the blue skies and bright colours, there was just always this unsettling sense of dread overlaying every scene, and despite this being shounen and main characters usually being draped in layers of plot armour, deaths still always caried weight, because characters actually reacted to civilians dying. I honestly wish I could utterly love this show, but sadly I can't, and for once I can pin the reason for that on a single character - Tamaki, who seems like a boardroom decided that the show needed a fanservice character to appeal to the male teenage demographic, and Ohkubo just used his rough draft design of "uh, nekomata catgirl who constantly loses her clothes and teabags guys naked?". Both her and Hibana falling for Shinra for no reason stick out so blatantly amont a cast of well-rounded characters, and it's a crying shame. However, thankfully Tamaki featured less in the final two arcs of the show, the "yeah I can see where the accusations to Trigger come from" Asakusa arc (that ended up being a better love story than twilight to my utter surprise) and the Underworld Infiltration that had absolutely insane animation, incredibly tense fights, and actual emotional payoff. So I can say that the series went on hiatus on a high-note, and if you grit your teeth throughout Tamaki's appearances, it's more than worth a watch. Four pls step on me Maki-san out of five.
DNF:
Vinland Saga
Vinland Saga was one of these mangas I've always heard about a lot, hailed as one of the absolute greatest works regarding story telling on a larger scope while having stellar artwork (and unlike Berserk, publishing regularly). It getting an anime adaptation by WIT Studio seemed like a great way for me to get into it, and having no real idea where the story was going had me enjoy the prologue a ton, while also hitting me in the shins with catharsis and pain. The unusual constellation of hero and antagonist of the show also made the main story quite interesting, but eventually I found myself dropping off - the fact that the story tries to remain realistic in showing the atrocities of war and having a main character who won't allow remorse while also constantly getting himself into awful scenarios ended up being just a tad bit too depressing for me. Maybe I'll continue watching it one day and hope things will eventually look up for poor Thorfinn, but for now, I'll rest it at about 50%. The OPs were bangers, tho.
Blade of the Immortal - Immortal
Another one of these works that are often brought up in conversation of the classics getting a new shiny adaptation, and I thought I might give it a shot, before remembering I don't really like tragic stories like this, so I ended up dropping it. :')
And the rare DNEW:
Psycho Pass 3
Despite being available to me on Amazon, I ended up not watching it - first, because I hadn't yet seen the in-between movies (which will be screened here in January), and then second because people were not having the finale that apparently is a cliffhanger with no immediate sequel following, soooo I'm putting this one on the backburner. At least from the vague impressions I got, it seems it managed to include the rare Greek mythology allusion I had never in my life heard before. I really wonder if Urobutcher at this point is at all still involved with his brainchild, or if he's just fulltime writing puppet wuxia fanfix (as he should).
Babylon
Another Amazon exclusive that got a lot of reaction out of people - I'm always wanting murder mystery type anime, and this one seems to do this and a lot more, but since its airing schedule was quite irregular, I wanted to wait until it was done airing. I'll get back to it when I'm in the mood for dark insanity!
I also never ended up watching the third season of Bungou Stray Dogs and its movie... Nothing will ever be Dark Era, and I have to just, accept that, rewatch these four episodes occasionally, and cry a lot about it :')
(and yes, I've still not watched Mob Psycho II season two, because if I do... it's over ;__;)
Movies
John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum (OV)
I watched this movie twice within a few days, once in OV on opening day, and then again in German as part of a triple feature (my first time doing something like this). The latter I did mainly tbh because I wanted to see the first movie on the big screen, and what can I say but it still goes hard! The second and third movies, however, have their slightly dragging parts, although back to back the shift from "mostly down to earth first movie" to "hot beduine princes in the middle of the desert running a world-spanning assassin parallel society" seemed less crass somehow. Then in summer, I watched part 3 with Kay on Shybil, and we had a blast, which means the movie holds up better for me than part 2. The main reason for that, I guess, is that part 3 is just. Blatant anime fan pandering. I have no other words for it. If you want a glimpse into my yelling on the subject, knock yourself out, but I think it's enough to say that Charon does the Anime Glasses Push-Up(tm) like a complete badass. I am eagerly awaiting the next part in 2021, and hope that Jonathan won't really go to war with his dad :( Four best dogs out of five.
Spider-man Far From Home (OV)
This was the first MCU movie I didn't watch either on my own or with my Baywatch Marvel bros (who are only marginally aware of MCU things beyond the big movies), but with my library date and her circle of friends, so that was a fun experience! Many a fun discussion was had right after the movie, and reacting in sync to the Fury reveal was a great bonding activity. Nevertheless, the movie to me was still overshadowed to my utter exhaustion from Endgame, and the fact that they kept shoving Tony into the narrative at every moment didn't help. (Same goes for Happy and his sudden romance with Aunt May :') ) His looming presence often was to the detriment of the fun Eurotrip vibes, and I guess we now can say that Tony caused like half of all Marvel villains. Congratulations. The likable cast and perfectly timed gags (getting hit by an ICE? The Dutch football fans? The teacher who just. doesn't give a shit??) still made the movie a breezy and fun experience, though. I did like Quentin a lot, even though I knew he'd be the villain, but watching him handle both roles was a delight and I'm sad to see him go. I was somewhat surprised to see Fury so seemingly incompetent and chipper, and wondered if it was just them serving more of what people loved so much in Captain Marvel, character continuity be damned, but it turning out to be Telos in disguise was genius, because to him, that IS his impression of Fury's character. Also, I'm so happy that even twenty years later, it seems they are still on good terms!! Telos is such a good bean :D Like the first MCU Spider-man movie, I don't have the urge to rewatch, but it was definitely a fun watch I thoroughly enjoyed, and one that made me look forward to the future, although sadly the two immediate follow-ups (Spider-man and Captain Marvel) won't be out anytime soon). It still felt odd to have this one be the ending to the MCU as of 2019, though. Four surprise DB cameos out of five.
Maquia
I thought I had already followed every German anime outlet on social media, but it was only thanks to a surprise instagram ad that I was notified of an anime movie screening in my local cinema, which just really makes me doubt how well these firms use their existing outlets. Anyway, it was for Maquia, the movie written by Okada who's most famous for personal drama and also Anohana, which I have to admit I've never watched. Everyone on twitter who had seen it in either Japan or the UK would not shut up about how great it was, so I went on very short notice, not expecting much (I was under the vague impression it might have some incestbait romance - which turned out to be so absolutely wrong). Following a girl from a near immortal people who after the descruction of her homeland ends up taking in a human boy as a surrogate child, the movie very much is a meditation on parenthood, letting children go and finding meaning in your own life after this separation, while at the same time being a swan song of a magical world devoured by the mundane reality of industrialisation and progress. Maquia is kind without being annoyingly naive, and every of the important people that accompany her path through live are complex but endearing in their own way. I can sincerely say I hardly ever rooted for a happy ending this fiercely, even though it was always bound to be bittersweet. I'm very glad I trusted the hype, because this truly was a beautiful movie in every sense of the word. Five out of five knights accepting the title of just friend with dignity.
One Piece: Stampede (OV)
Since other anime publishers are better at advertising, I found out that this One Piece movie, too, would be getting an OV screening here shortly after Japanese release, and this time, it even worked on the first try with the subtitles, whoo! While I am keeping up with One Piece week by week, I have a bit of a gap in between Skypia and the 3D2Y arc, and this movie is just pure undiluted fanservice. There is the thinest of story veneers, but mostly, it's just about getting to see the characters of the current timeline fight/team-up/both, and some of the cameos no doubt went over my head (although I will admit that seeing my two favourite swordboys making an appearance was well appreciated indeed). I did enjoy the fact that the movie just caved in to fan demands of pairing poor Trafalgar Law up with Ruffy again, RIP poor Trafo's sanity. Unfortunately the escalating power levels ended in all of the fighting a giant CGI monstrosity, because Toei still hasn't realised that sometimes less CGI is just... more. Unlike Film Gold which I maintain could work even for someone only superficially familiar with the series as a stand alone, this one is really just for the fans, and as an anniversary celebration, that's fine. Three sword-styles out of five.
They shall never grow old (OV)
Following up fun anime movies with depressing World War I documentaries like eyyyyy that's my life, mate. The movie got a screening in Germany half a year later after it's release for some reason, and someone from my WWI exhibition group sent out a mail suggesting we all go see it together. I couldn't make it to that screening, but considering I was in the final stages of writing a thesis on WWI, I decided to catch the matinee screening on a sunday morning. The movie is just original footage that has been coloured after the fact, which results in this weird cognitive dissonance - everything you've seen from that time period was in black and white always, so now seeing it in colour just feels jarringly more recent. The narration is exclusively taken from interviews with WWI veterans conducted after WWII even, although I have to say that the selection was somewhat strange. Having gone through the IWM audio archives myself, I do know for a fact that there are many devastating reports on the experiences by the soldiers, but the movie included a surprising amount of those that were pretty much "Yeah, well, the whole thing was an adventure! I don't regret signing up! It made me the man I am today!". Maybe it was supposed to be ironic when paired with visual imagery, but the overall impression it left me with was somewhat bewildered to see such positive feedback (which I know some people honestly held) featured so prominently. The fact that the movie presented an exclusively British perspective lead to some awkward chuckles when it got to them describing the German enemy - my favourite part being when someone retold that one time they captured some Bavarian soldiers and they told them that they would soon be relieved by the Prussians, jsyk, and "give them hell". A, German empire things! Walking out of this utterly depressing movie into the scorching heat of July was just as discombulating, and I ended up feeling somewhat off center all day. I usually avoid war movies as best as I can, but it was a gripping experience if you have the stomach for it. Four history repeating.mp3 out of five.
Frozen 2
You may notice that this is the only movie I've watched in the second half year of 2019 - partially, that was that there was just event movies coming out and just general cinema exhaustion, partially just that in between thesis, traveling, internship and moving, I was simply busy. I had a list of indie movies I wanted to watch, including The Lighthouse (which a dick on tumblr spoiled me for, thanks for nothing) and Parasite, but since those were running only in the tiny cinema that ironically is next door to my old flat, I somehow never ended up making the trip in November/December to catch them, you know, like a total idiot. I have them on my list of things I want to catch after home release, though. However, I did make it to see Frozen 2 in an afternoon showing (bc honestly, it's fun to watch it with a child audience). Jenny Nicholson did a great video on it, and yeah, the movie is bizarre when it comes to where the decided to take the story..? I am digging the water horse and main song enough to balance it out, but I'm glad I'm not the least bit invested in the story, because boy howdy was it weird. I'm pretty sure there were short notice rewrites? As it stands, it has some scenes that are surprisingly bleak for a Disney kids movie, though, and I wonder how many kids are now scared of the ocean. Three "Worst Song in a movie I've ever seen tho" out of five.
Knives Out
Yes, technically I saw this movie only yesterday, but it was released in 2019 originally, soooo. I'm always here for high budget murder mysteries, and this one got nothing but rave reviews, always with the tip that the less you know about it, the better, so I went in only knowing that it would have Daniel Craig and also Chris Evans (in a sweater). And am I ever glad I saw it knowing nothing, John Snow! Each time I thought I knew how the movie was going to work, it pulled a Martha car chase maneuver on me. Classical whodunnit, clearly, we now will get everyone's fake statements and- wait, no, we just learned how the murder happened and we're like one third in, what-- Ok, so it's a thriller, then, and it's about Bland getting the culprit to admit--- wait, is Blanc actually a dumbass? Also why is Chris Evans only showing up after the halfway point what is--- EVERYTHING IS HAPPENING SO MUCH??? It was a ride, and I found myself gobbling up the red herrings like a noob, and fully enjoying the experience. The movie found a great balance between poking for fun at mystery cliches with the pure set design alone (and the "... STATE TROOPER WARREN" line had me sobbing) and being a sincere love letter to the genre at the same time, and at the same time the movie doubled as a scathing social satire that nevertheless had genuine heart and treated its sympathetic characters with care. I won't be the last to state that I'm more than down for a second movie staring the world's best-worst private detective and his longsuffering police friend as they chew out Trump voters. He can bring Marta in for moral support!!!! Or just drop by for coffee sometimes and run the case by her while they play go!! Nothing but good things for these precious beans. Five IMMIGRANTS WE GET THE JOB DONE out of five.
Anime
Let's start with leftovers:
Dororo
... was such a letdown :') The original never had a proper ending, so it was obvious they would have to come up with their own, but I think they just didn't really know how to get there, and just... winged it. This show has the dumbest character deaths ever, and its attempt to in the second cours introduce as a moral conundrum and trolley problem "get your body back that your father sold to demons without your consent, also those demons still eat people BUT it means having to have your region undergo the same hardships every other region undergoes, because whoops it's the sengoku period" was just... Maybe I'm not buddhist enough to enjoy this show. Well, we'll always have Paris I mean the wonderful first OP/ED. Two out of five spines made from wood and twine jfc HOW WAS THIS EVER A CHOICE
Morose Monokean
I only had very vague memories of Dollar Store Brand Natsume season one, as I watched it while sick, and turns out in the half year since I've watched season two, I again forgot a lot about it until I re-read my chat with a fan of the series, oops :'D The second season actually moved the main plot forwards in introducing some key players and FINALLY having its main character ask... questions.... and then in the final arc, things just went entirely bonkers. The comments on crunchyroll clued me in that apparently, the anime deviated rather crassly from the manga in the final episode (we're not talking minor differences, but "did our main character just slaughter someone on screen or not", which.... is quite the important distinction), and since crunchyroll also hosts the manga on their site (although their manga reader is awful and they should feel bad about it), I ended up bingeing that one starting where the anime deviated. The story was much more coherent that way, and the overall mood less generic and genki, so that the turn to actual yokaislaughter didn't come out of nowhere. I initially wanted to keep up with the manga, but... forgot.... I think I might read it when it's ending, though, just to figure out why there are three Ashiya Sakaes, and how the Abe and Ashiya are connected in this universe. Three overprotective ancestral spirits out of five.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - Vento Aureo
My first JoJo watch (if we discount John Wick who IS A JOJO CONFIRMED) was a delight up until the very end! Not everything made sense to me, but I think that's just part of the experience, really. I had already been spoiled early on that my favourite would make it through and we'd get an amazing conclusion (although Polnareff in a tortoise was a surprise, I'll admit), but nevertheless the showdown had me on the edge of my seat. Giorno spent most of the show so far being a support rather than the main character in every interaction and fight, and while he is in the mafia and shown to be ruthless when threatened, seeing the healer of the party go absolutely bonkers in the final confrontation was quite a sight. A fate worse than death indeed. I'm somewhat sad that unlike the connected previous four seasons, Vento Aureo doesn't really have a sequel, but I guess we'll always have doujin. Five bodyguard romances out of five.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
My little taishou shounen manga that fills me with so many nostalgic feelings for first falling for Bleach got the anime it deserved, that's about all I can say. Ufotable made sure things looked absolutely fantastic, and to my great delight kept the heavily outlined style of the original, making it really stand out among the generic anime designs of the season. Ironically, I had put the movie (which was just the first five episodes/prologue cut into movie format) on my "what would you want to see at Akiba Pass Festival 2020" request sheet, and then it WAS screened in Germany, but I missed it bc I was galavanting around Paris with Kay and A :'D A worthwhile tradeoff, though, because as much as I enjoyed the anime, it really is just an animated version of the manga, and I mean that in the best and worst way. It didn't add much for me in the sense of a new experience, although I am looking forward to seeing Sakurai play Tomioka in upcoming arcs. As the manga is now drawing closer to its finale, this will be the first manga I've read weekly from beginning until end, and I suppose I will watch whatever new anime adaptation will come out (even if it'll make me cry buckets, like the upcoming Train Arc movie). Mostly I'm just happy that the show shone a spotlight on a manga that was undeservedly overlooked by the general fandom in my humble opinion. Five Boar-headed Bishounen out of five.
To the abandoned sacred beasts
a.k.a my hatewatch of the year, because I somehow always have them (even as I started dropping things more frequently these days). For a reason absolutely unknown to me, Crunchyroll heavily promoted the show, so I ended up watching all twelve episodes (also because it was one way to procrastinate half an hour of thesis writing each week), but it's just.... so bad :') The animation and designs being mediocre and looking as if they were form the mid 2000s was one thing, but also the entire show was just so heavy-handed. I kept seeing comments about how great the show was in showing PTSD and the often depressing afterlives of former military servicemen, but all of this was handled with the grace of a wrecking ball to the face. It doesn't help that the main villain is called Cain and is a literal cackling maniac vampire. The setting of American Civil War but with Monsters(tm) could have been really interesting, and I am known to love my PTSD soldiers with a heart of gold (toss a coin to your maritos, o kataphrakts of plentyyy), but this ain't it, chief. Let's not talk about the fanservice girl, either. Anyway, zero impact out of five.
Given
Since MAPPA seems to have decided to just put Yuri on Ice!!! as a franchise on, well, ice, other studios seem to be more than willing to put out BL adaptations for the mainstream market with a larger production value than in the past. Unfortunately, those BLs tend to be chockful of things that make me nope out faster than you can say "But it's not really assault because he actually likes it" and/or somehow still ripe with mid-2000s-Yaoi-seme/uke-cliches. Given in that regard was a nice surprise - I had read the manga at some point, and found it quite enjoyable (it helped that the manga never really advertised as being about music, so I wasn't let down by the abscence of, well, music, in the anime). The anime, while adding music which was quite impactful when it needed to, did simplify the character designs, though, which also lead to a loss of expressiveness unfortunately. That along with Mafuyu's utterly underwhelming voice actor (or that VA's choice of tone) lead to him being way more of a doormat than in the manga, rendering the relatability of his trauma pretty much nil. I ended up being way more into the older generation in the anime (it helped that it didn't yet cover the worst fuck boy third wheel), who also got the single best shot (which turns out was by a foreign animator freelancing! the world we live in). They get a whole movie dedicated to their complicated romance this year, and I hope it'll end with the happy ending the series' best boy deserves. Anyway, overall I'd recommend the manga over the anime everyday, just look up the song perfomances online. Nevertheless, I'm very happy to just see a good BL getting such a well-received and solid adaptation. Keep doing that. Three out of four seasons.
Lord El-Melloi 2 Case Files: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note
When I had moved to the dorm in 2011 and started exploring more Chinese Cartoons by the power of the internet, I relied heavily on pointers by people in the anime community, and gigguk's constant praise of Baccano! and Fate/Zero had me pick up these series early on (and he's spot on in recommending both, yes). I've tried following up with other Fate/______ things, I really did - but since I started out with the single best part (bless Urobutcher and his perchant for cool lesbians and gruff middle aged men), I just couldn't with high school drama and hetero nonsense (Fate/Stay Night) and too much fantasy bullshit (Fate/Apocrypha). I was vaguely aware that there was a game spin-off featuring adult Waver Velvet solving magical murder mysteries, and then Troyca did the anime adaptation (look, I have a soft spot for them, okay??), so I decided well, let's try with this one! And I ended up enjoying it a lot! Not because of the story per se - none of the mysteries made sense to me as someone not at all in the know when it comes to Fate's complicated magic system, and all the allusions to other Fate timelines flew entirely over my head (I caught the cameos because they were very hamfisted, but that was about it). No, the reason why I enjoyed it was exclusively watching adult Waver navigate an entire sharktank of talented mages out for his title/skills/head while still in eternal mourning for a guy who died centuries ago, and the occasional glimpses we got at the excitable and incredibly ambitious kid he used to be under all the layers of resigned and mellowed-out veneer of his Lord persona. The scene where he says he considers himself Iskander's subject? /clutches chest The scenes of him in Babylon near Iskander's grave? /clutches chest Him adopting a failed Saber clone as his student despite having lost to her in a way? /clutches chest Melvin fighting against being forever friendzoned due to Waver being hung up on Iskander and also buried up to his neck in self-loathing, but still sticking by his side because "someone should remember Waver before he became Lord El-Melloi"??? /yells about it loud enough to be heard across the entire English channel So yeah TL;DR: The story made no sense to me, but I'm here for the fanservice Troyca delivers everyday of the week, thank you. Three WYHDUNNITs out of five.
(Also, there is now an animated commercial for Fate/Strange Fake. Narita, when is this series done so we can get, like, an actual anime, just asking for a friend;;;)
Fire Force - Enn Enn no Shoubotai
Ohkubo was one of these people I could have seen at a panel on a con, but didn't, because I just really did not like Soul Eater. Part of that probably was the art style which wasn't vibing with my Kubo stan self of the time, but another part was that I just never really liked the human weapon concept, no matter how good the Studio BONES animation looked. I was vaguely aware that there was a new manga out by this author, and that there was some drama about him insunating Studio TRIGGER ripped off his ideas for their movie PROMARE which came out just before the anime adaptation of Fire Force premiered, and then part of the broadcast had to be delayed after the KyoAni arson tragedy. This production had a rough start, is what I'm saying, and it's a bit of a miracle that despite poor sales, it's getting a second season. I had only seen few still images and thought that the main character looked like your typical gung-ho shounen prota, so imagine my surprise when he turned out to be a softspoken, reasonable and obedient kid just trying his best(tm) while living in an absolutely nightmare-ish world. Three things really stood out to me about Fire Force - the stellar animation that managed to get the best out of the Shaft aesthetic without overplaying it, the cast of incredibly likeable characters who actually interact with each other in supportive and believable ways, and the execution of daytime horror in a way I haven't seen anime do maybe ever. Despite the blue skies and bright colours, there was just always this unsettling sense of dread overlaying every scene, and despite this being shounen and main characters usually being draped in layers of plot armour, deaths still always caried weight, because characters actually reacted to civilians dying. I honestly wish I could utterly love this show, but sadly I can't, and for once I can pin the reason for that on a single character - Tamaki, who seems like a boardroom decided that the show needed a fanservice character to appeal to the male teenage demographic, and Ohkubo just used his rough draft design of "uh, nekomata catgirl who constantly loses her clothes and teabags guys naked?". Both her and Hibana falling for Shinra for no reason stick out so blatantly amont a cast of well-rounded characters, and it's a crying shame. However, thankfully Tamaki featured less in the final two arcs of the show, the "yeah I can see where the accusations to Trigger come from" Asakusa arc (that ended up being a better love story than twilight to my utter surprise) and the Underworld Infiltration that had absolutely insane animation, incredibly tense fights, and actual emotional payoff. So I can say that the series went on hiatus on a high-note, and if you grit your teeth throughout Tamaki's appearances, it's more than worth a watch. Four pls step on me Maki-san out of five.
DNF:
Vinland Saga
Vinland Saga was one of these mangas I've always heard about a lot, hailed as one of the absolute greatest works regarding story telling on a larger scope while having stellar artwork (and unlike Berserk, publishing regularly). It getting an anime adaptation by WIT Studio seemed like a great way for me to get into it, and having no real idea where the story was going had me enjoy the prologue a ton, while also hitting me in the shins with catharsis and pain. The unusual constellation of hero and antagonist of the show also made the main story quite interesting, but eventually I found myself dropping off - the fact that the story tries to remain realistic in showing the atrocities of war and having a main character who won't allow remorse while also constantly getting himself into awful scenarios ended up being just a tad bit too depressing for me. Maybe I'll continue watching it one day and hope things will eventually look up for poor Thorfinn, but for now, I'll rest it at about 50%. The OPs were bangers, tho.
Blade of the Immortal - Immortal
Another one of these works that are often brought up in conversation of the classics getting a new shiny adaptation, and I thought I might give it a shot, before remembering I don't really like tragic stories like this, so I ended up dropping it. :')
And the rare DNEW:
Psycho Pass 3
Despite being available to me on Amazon, I ended up not watching it - first, because I hadn't yet seen the in-between movies (which will be screened here in January), and then second because people were not having the finale that apparently is a cliffhanger with no immediate sequel following, soooo I'm putting this one on the backburner. At least from the vague impressions I got, it seems it managed to include the rare Greek mythology allusion I had never in my life heard before. I really wonder if Urobutcher at this point is at all still involved with his brainchild, or if he's just fulltime writing puppet wuxia fanfix (as he should).
Babylon
Another Amazon exclusive that got a lot of reaction out of people - I'm always wanting murder mystery type anime, and this one seems to do this and a lot more, but since its airing schedule was quite irregular, I wanted to wait until it was done airing. I'll get back to it when I'm in the mood for dark insanity!
I also never ended up watching the third season of Bungou Stray Dogs and its movie... Nothing will ever be Dark Era, and I have to just, accept that, rewatch these four episodes occasionally, and cry a lot about it :')
(and yes, I've still not watched Mob Psycho II season two, because if I do... it's over ;__;)