This post is full of things that excited me a lot!
I watched a bunch of interesting stuff! I'm behind on anime, I know, but I kind of took a break to marathon s6 of Medium and kind of instantly fell back in love. How is this show so good, year after year?? Also, Joe Duboi, you are amazing. ♥
Arakawa Under the Bridge 13: Until the end of this episode, I didn't realize that there was going to be a second season! Which omg! WHEN WHEN WHEN WHEN PLZ LET IT BE NEXT SEASON BECAUSE WE NEED A GOOD SEASON AFTER THE CURRENT TERRIBLE ONE.
A second season also explains the anti-climactic note this episode ended on, like it was just another episode in the daily lives of Kou and the Arakawa members. I was expecting more resolution with Kou and Nino in this one, but there really... wasn't? Not that the focus on three peripheral characters (Billy, Jacquiline, and the hairdresser/Last Samurai characters) wasn't hilarious, especially for Sister vs Last Samurai and the batshit crazy of the amusement park storyline, but. No resolution with the characters, which was kind of a let-down after episode 12 resolving the Kou vs Ichinomiya Sr. thing. But! Second season! I am totally okay with the lack of resolution now!
Black Rock Shooter: I am firmly not going to read any commentary about this from anywhere but my flist or review blogs that I trust! Because I liked it! And I can see where other people might not have liked it, but I don't want anyone harshing my buzz! I was actually kind of pleased with the animation--there are points where you can see the lack of budget, sure, but the pace of the battles was frantic and they looked absolutely gorgeous and I definitely walked away from this wanting more. Like, say, a full TV series would be nice. (Though, I'm never sure if I want a BRS tv series or a Miku-tachi series. Because, seriously, I want a tv series with them. Imagine it! 13 full episodes of Kaito being everone's bitch! Of Luka being hot! Of Miku being adorable! Of Lin and Ren being little shits! I wantttttt ittttttt.)
Uh, anyway. SPOILERS, I guess?
I was surprised by how little Black Rock Shooter and DeadMaster were actually in this! I'm not complaining, though, because I really loved Mato and Yomi, I would love to see more of them and, holy crap, did I ever ship them hardcore. I'm not entirely sure how the two worlds connect--were BRS and DM part of the characters, some part of their spirit or soul? Their appearances were awfully similar to Mato and Yomi's appearance or was that just one of those things you nod your head at and roll with it? (I suspect that's probably it.) Were they just posessing Mato and Yomi? I think you could take the scene at the end, with BRS and Mato becoming one, either way, honestly.
I liked all the little touches, too! The use of blue and white with touches of black in Mato's world, contrasted against the black and blue with touches of white in Black Rock Shooter's world, the stars that were on Mato's shoots or cellphone strap or her bedroom wall, the checkered pattern of the school wall that she walked by, they were neat little ways to tie the two worlds together. I liked the slice of life feeling of Mato and Yomi's life--honestly, when it first started, I expected to be bored by it. Maybe it was the way they spliced the everyday life together with the combat between Black Rock Shooter and DeadMaster or maybe I'm just a sucker for slashable girls, I'm not sure. Either way, it was all very entertaining.
But the star of the show definitely was the combat between the two, even if... okay, I have to admit, this OAV really trades on familiarity of the characters beforehand. I don't there will be a lot of people walking into this OAV with no pre-knowledge of the whole phenomenon and come back out feeling satisfied. I was surprised at the lack of actual story for the main characters (BRS and DM, I mean), which almost felt tacked on because, well, they had to include them, since this was a Black Rock Shooter OAV. You actually don't really learn much of anything about those two and that's an odd choice to make for this OAV.
Is it the choice I would have made? No. But it still turned out a really darling, sweet little OAV that had some awesome combat spliced in with it. I'd like more, I'd like to get some actual explaination or canon (....which I realize is a completely ridiculous thing to say, I mean, ahahaha, Vocaloid hard canon? Really now.) but in lieu of that? Taking this for what it was, I was happy with it. It was an OAV meant to sell figurines, I'm pretty sure it'll be successful in that sense. (God, how badly do I want the figures? SO BADLY.)
And I am totally going to rewatch those epic fight scenes like a hundred times.
Batman: Under the Red Hood: ....I don't even know what to make of this, to be honest. Was it good? Was it bad? Was it mediocre? I can't even tell! I suppose I came into this with a lot of baggage because I have issues with Jason and how he's been used in canon and what they are/aren't doing with him and just the character in general and how that spills over into this. And, also, while I may not be old school old school, I've done my time in the salt mines. I'm probably going on twelve years of history with these characters now, so, you know. I have opinions and stuff.
(You should have seen my face go :D :D :D when I saw Bruce Timm was one of the producers omg. I'm just going to assume everything I liked about this movie was his doing. ♥)
I should probably warn for that, just as much as I'm going to warn for SPOILERS.
There were things I liked and didn't like. I thought the animation was fantastic, even if the character designs were occasionally weird. I wasn't that thrilled with most of the voice work, but some of them grew on me. Bruce Greenwood was decent as Batman, Neil Patrick Harris was surprisingly bland as Nightwing, and Jensen Ackles was all wrong for Jason, he sounded nothing like the Jason in my head and it was frequently distracting. He's a good actor, just the voice didn't fit at all for me. John DiMaggio was actually pretty decent as the Joker, but he kind of felt like this weird blend between Heath Ledger and Mark Hamill that distracted me--though, he came through in the climactic moments. (I could say the same about Jensen, I have to give him credit for the climactic scene.) And it isn't NPH's fault that I didn't warm up to him, I suspect. I imprinted on Loren Lester a long time ago. *wry*
Actually, I was surprised at how much Dick was in this, to be honest. And the complete lack of Babs and Tim! It really sort of felt like... it was trying to be the exact opposite of RotJ, honestly. Like this was DC's apology to me for that thing. Which was all about Tim and Babs, but Dick was nowhere to be seen, almost to the point where it stuck out like a sore thumb--which is how their absence felt in this film. And, hell, when you get me going, "....wow, this movie was a real sausage fest." at a Batman movie, you know it's a little noticeable.
But, was it a bad movie? No, I actually really enjoyed it! I'll forgive a lot for action scenes with Nightwing getting to be awesome and there were quite a lot of those here! The snappy dialogue came through really well, I felt pleased enough with getting his personality down. Actually, that's one of the things I liked best about the movie and why I'm sliding back towards thinking maybe I have a teensy word crush on Winick, who was listed as the main writer for the movie. I liked Bruce pretty well here, he was a control freak while still being a human being, the balance they struck was good. I liked Jason as being a little unhinged and a character with father issues towards Bruce--sure, the revelation of what was really eating at him was super obvious (that it wasn't that Bruce failed to save him, but that he didn't kill the Joker for killing him) because I've already been through all this, but was solidly done.
The problem is that Jason isn't very well defined in canon, because nobody knows what to fucking do with the character to make him interesting, that every writer who's written him has a different take on his motivations and style. He feels like a (potentially) cool idea that's been just mangled all to hell, so a lot of that baggage carries over with this movie, since it's not like they could really define him that well, either. They did what they could and I was actually kind of impressed! I got the feeling that, if I didn't know anything else about Jason before this, he would have hit all my buttons here and I would have been totally obsessed with him. But I do know Jason. And I kind of want him to DIAF.
Honestly, the only thing that could really save Jason for me at this point is a good writer tackling his issues with Tim and Dick, because I think that's where the most interesting conflict lies. They've tried to make his conflict with Bruce interesting, but it never really clicked. But you put him up against Dick and Tim? The one he could never measure up to and the one that replaced him? Super interesting.
....but I'm getting off track. There was a lot this movie did right for me. Some changes I definitely approve of--like giving Jason the red and black Robin costume. I didn't like the way they erased Tim and Babs from the whole thing. I get that it was just one movie, they probably felt like they didn't have time, but even just cameos! It wouldn't have been hard to work either of them into the movie! I also didn't care for the total lack of Dick's presence towards the end--while of course it was always going to come down to Bruce vs Jason in that moment (as it should be), you could definitely feel that moment where they said, "Okay, we need Nightwing to go away now, so let's pull something out of our asses to put him on a bus." rather than it being anything that felt natural to the storyline. I was disappointed in the total lack of Dick and Jason interaction as well.
One of my favorite things about the Batman family is that, in its best moments, all these characters are connected and it's this larger family of people. But everything here felt isolated. Which, okay, it's Batman. He's the definition of a lone wolf a lot of times and that works for solo movies that focus on him. But that wasn't the point here. The point was about Bruce's failings, it was about the connection with Jason, the lasting effect the Joker had on both of them, it was even a little about Ra's al Ghul's role in things. Honestly, sometimes I kind of suspected that the only reason Dick was in it as much as he was, was because they were doing it for fanservice/because he's a popular character. I think it would have been a lot stronger to have included more of their extended family.
Were there great moments in the movie? Oh, hell yes. I mean, any movie that has Dick going, "Lasers! He's got lasers!!" when Amazo starts shooting at them? Or "Need a hand?" "No." "....okay. How about I just stick around and watch?" in a supremely patient voice? Or "Could you just once say, 'Let's get in the car.'? Is that so hard?"? Or any of the other great lines? Total gold. The three-way climax with Jason, Bruce, and the Joker was really well done, too, the intensity of it and the reactions of everyone there. The fight scenes were fantastic! Batman and Nightwing against Amazo! The two of them against Red Hood! Bruce versus Jason in one hell of an epic fight, one that was crazy intense by the time Bruce started actually fighting back!
That's one of those things that I love about the Batman mythos--yes, characters like Dick and Jason and Tim are amazing fighters, they're able to stand toe to toe with Batman... until Bruce actually starts being serious. And then you realize, oh, shit, Bruce is a master at this and they're still students, even when the text doesn't specifically say that, you just get it.
I was surprised at how dark this movie was as well. I mean, early on, Jason tosses a dufflebag full of heads onto a table! Not that you see them, but that's really kind of dark. And there's a lot of death and violence and disturbing imagery. Not to a point of excess, but this definitely is a darker movie than usual, which I actually liked. It felt like a fairly polished version of the original events.
It's just... why this storyline? Why choose this one over, say, Cataclysm or Battle for the Cowl or Knightfall or Murderer/Fugitive or Hush or any number of other stories? It's not like this one is really going to help you jump into the main continuity, nor was it particuarly extra memorable in comparison to the others. It wasn't bad, I'm actually feeling the urge to dive into my backlog again, but I'm not entirely sure I get the point.
Still, it was a really cool little movie. And DICK GOT TO BE AWESOME IN IT. You really have no idea how much I'll forgive for that.
Arakawa Under the Bridge 13: Until the end of this episode, I didn't realize that there was going to be a second season! Which omg! WHEN WHEN WHEN WHEN PLZ LET IT BE NEXT SEASON BECAUSE WE NEED A GOOD SEASON AFTER THE CURRENT TERRIBLE ONE.
A second season also explains the anti-climactic note this episode ended on, like it was just another episode in the daily lives of Kou and the Arakawa members. I was expecting more resolution with Kou and Nino in this one, but there really... wasn't? Not that the focus on three peripheral characters (Billy, Jacquiline, and the hairdresser/Last Samurai characters) wasn't hilarious, especially for Sister vs Last Samurai and the batshit crazy of the amusement park storyline, but. No resolution with the characters, which was kind of a let-down after episode 12 resolving the Kou vs Ichinomiya Sr. thing. But! Second season! I am totally okay with the lack of resolution now!
Black Rock Shooter: I am firmly not going to read any commentary about this from anywhere but my flist or review blogs that I trust! Because I liked it! And I can see where other people might not have liked it, but I don't want anyone harshing my buzz! I was actually kind of pleased with the animation--there are points where you can see the lack of budget, sure, but the pace of the battles was frantic and they looked absolutely gorgeous and I definitely walked away from this wanting more. Like, say, a full TV series would be nice. (Though, I'm never sure if I want a BRS tv series or a Miku-tachi series. Because, seriously, I want a tv series with them. Imagine it! 13 full episodes of Kaito being everone's bitch! Of Luka being hot! Of Miku being adorable! Of Lin and Ren being little shits! I wantttttt ittttttt.)
Uh, anyway. SPOILERS, I guess?
I was surprised by how little Black Rock Shooter and DeadMaster were actually in this! I'm not complaining, though, because I really loved Mato and Yomi, I would love to see more of them and, holy crap, did I ever ship them hardcore. I'm not entirely sure how the two worlds connect--were BRS and DM part of the characters, some part of their spirit or soul? Their appearances were awfully similar to Mato and Yomi's appearance or was that just one of those things you nod your head at and roll with it? (I suspect that's probably it.) Were they just posessing Mato and Yomi? I think you could take the scene at the end, with BRS and Mato becoming one, either way, honestly.
I liked all the little touches, too! The use of blue and white with touches of black in Mato's world, contrasted against the black and blue with touches of white in Black Rock Shooter's world, the stars that were on Mato's shoots or cellphone strap or her bedroom wall, the checkered pattern of the school wall that she walked by, they were neat little ways to tie the two worlds together. I liked the slice of life feeling of Mato and Yomi's life--honestly, when it first started, I expected to be bored by it. Maybe it was the way they spliced the everyday life together with the combat between Black Rock Shooter and DeadMaster or maybe I'm just a sucker for slashable girls, I'm not sure. Either way, it was all very entertaining.
But the star of the show definitely was the combat between the two, even if... okay, I have to admit, this OAV really trades on familiarity of the characters beforehand. I don't there will be a lot of people walking into this OAV with no pre-knowledge of the whole phenomenon and come back out feeling satisfied. I was surprised at the lack of actual story for the main characters (BRS and DM, I mean), which almost felt tacked on because, well, they had to include them, since this was a Black Rock Shooter OAV. You actually don't really learn much of anything about those two and that's an odd choice to make for this OAV.
Is it the choice I would have made? No. But it still turned out a really darling, sweet little OAV that had some awesome combat spliced in with it. I'd like more, I'd like to get some actual explaination or canon (....which I realize is a completely ridiculous thing to say, I mean, ahahaha, Vocaloid hard canon? Really now.) but in lieu of that? Taking this for what it was, I was happy with it. It was an OAV meant to sell figurines, I'm pretty sure it'll be successful in that sense. (God, how badly do I want the figures? SO BADLY.)
And I am totally going to rewatch those epic fight scenes like a hundred times.
Batman: Under the Red Hood: ....I don't even know what to make of this, to be honest. Was it good? Was it bad? Was it mediocre? I can't even tell! I suppose I came into this with a lot of baggage because I have issues with Jason and how he's been used in canon and what they are/aren't doing with him and just the character in general and how that spills over into this. And, also, while I may not be old school old school, I've done my time in the salt mines. I'm probably going on twelve years of history with these characters now, so, you know. I have opinions and stuff.
(You should have seen my face go :D :D :D when I saw Bruce Timm was one of the producers omg. I'm just going to assume everything I liked about this movie was his doing. ♥)
I should probably warn for that, just as much as I'm going to warn for SPOILERS.
There were things I liked and didn't like. I thought the animation was fantastic, even if the character designs were occasionally weird. I wasn't that thrilled with most of the voice work, but some of them grew on me. Bruce Greenwood was decent as Batman, Neil Patrick Harris was surprisingly bland as Nightwing, and Jensen Ackles was all wrong for Jason, he sounded nothing like the Jason in my head and it was frequently distracting. He's a good actor, just the voice didn't fit at all for me. John DiMaggio was actually pretty decent as the Joker, but he kind of felt like this weird blend between Heath Ledger and Mark Hamill that distracted me--though, he came through in the climactic moments. (I could say the same about Jensen, I have to give him credit for the climactic scene.) And it isn't NPH's fault that I didn't warm up to him, I suspect. I imprinted on Loren Lester a long time ago. *wry*
Actually, I was surprised at how much Dick was in this, to be honest. And the complete lack of Babs and Tim! It really sort of felt like... it was trying to be the exact opposite of RotJ, honestly. Like this was DC's apology to me for that thing. Which was all about Tim and Babs, but Dick was nowhere to be seen, almost to the point where it stuck out like a sore thumb--which is how their absence felt in this film. And, hell, when you get me going, "....wow, this movie was a real sausage fest." at a Batman movie, you know it's a little noticeable.
But, was it a bad movie? No, I actually really enjoyed it! I'll forgive a lot for action scenes with Nightwing getting to be awesome and there were quite a lot of those here! The snappy dialogue came through really well, I felt pleased enough with getting his personality down. Actually, that's one of the things I liked best about the movie and why I'm sliding back towards thinking maybe I have a teensy word crush on Winick, who was listed as the main writer for the movie. I liked Bruce pretty well here, he was a control freak while still being a human being, the balance they struck was good. I liked Jason as being a little unhinged and a character with father issues towards Bruce--sure, the revelation of what was really eating at him was super obvious (that it wasn't that Bruce failed to save him, but that he didn't kill the Joker for killing him) because I've already been through all this, but was solidly done.
The problem is that Jason isn't very well defined in canon, because nobody knows what to fucking do with the character to make him interesting, that every writer who's written him has a different take on his motivations and style. He feels like a (potentially) cool idea that's been just mangled all to hell, so a lot of that baggage carries over with this movie, since it's not like they could really define him that well, either. They did what they could and I was actually kind of impressed! I got the feeling that, if I didn't know anything else about Jason before this, he would have hit all my buttons here and I would have been totally obsessed with him. But I do know Jason. And I kind of want him to DIAF.
Honestly, the only thing that could really save Jason for me at this point is a good writer tackling his issues with Tim and Dick, because I think that's where the most interesting conflict lies. They've tried to make his conflict with Bruce interesting, but it never really clicked. But you put him up against Dick and Tim? The one he could never measure up to and the one that replaced him? Super interesting.
....but I'm getting off track. There was a lot this movie did right for me. Some changes I definitely approve of--like giving Jason the red and black Robin costume. I didn't like the way they erased Tim and Babs from the whole thing. I get that it was just one movie, they probably felt like they didn't have time, but even just cameos! It wouldn't have been hard to work either of them into the movie! I also didn't care for the total lack of Dick's presence towards the end--while of course it was always going to come down to Bruce vs Jason in that moment (as it should be), you could definitely feel that moment where they said, "Okay, we need Nightwing to go away now, so let's pull something out of our asses to put him on a bus." rather than it being anything that felt natural to the storyline. I was disappointed in the total lack of Dick and Jason interaction as well.
One of my favorite things about the Batman family is that, in its best moments, all these characters are connected and it's this larger family of people. But everything here felt isolated. Which, okay, it's Batman. He's the definition of a lone wolf a lot of times and that works for solo movies that focus on him. But that wasn't the point here. The point was about Bruce's failings, it was about the connection with Jason, the lasting effect the Joker had on both of them, it was even a little about Ra's al Ghul's role in things. Honestly, sometimes I kind of suspected that the only reason Dick was in it as much as he was, was because they were doing it for fanservice/because he's a popular character. I think it would have been a lot stronger to have included more of their extended family.
Were there great moments in the movie? Oh, hell yes. I mean, any movie that has Dick going, "Lasers! He's got lasers!!" when Amazo starts shooting at them? Or "Need a hand?" "No." "....okay. How about I just stick around and watch?" in a supremely patient voice? Or "Could you just once say, 'Let's get in the car.'? Is that so hard?"? Or any of the other great lines? Total gold. The three-way climax with Jason, Bruce, and the Joker was really well done, too, the intensity of it and the reactions of everyone there. The fight scenes were fantastic! Batman and Nightwing against Amazo! The two of them against Red Hood! Bruce versus Jason in one hell of an epic fight, one that was crazy intense by the time Bruce started actually fighting back!
That's one of those things that I love about the Batman mythos--yes, characters like Dick and Jason and Tim are amazing fighters, they're able to stand toe to toe with Batman... until Bruce actually starts being serious. And then you realize, oh, shit, Bruce is a master at this and they're still students, even when the text doesn't specifically say that, you just get it.
I was surprised at how dark this movie was as well. I mean, early on, Jason tosses a dufflebag full of heads onto a table! Not that you see them, but that's really kind of dark. And there's a lot of death and violence and disturbing imagery. Not to a point of excess, but this definitely is a darker movie than usual, which I actually liked. It felt like a fairly polished version of the original events.
It's just... why this storyline? Why choose this one over, say, Cataclysm or Battle for the Cowl or Knightfall or Murderer/Fugitive or Hush or any number of other stories? It's not like this one is really going to help you jump into the main continuity, nor was it particuarly extra memorable in comparison to the others. It wasn't bad, I'm actually feeling the urge to dive into my backlog again, but I'm not entirely sure I get the point.
Still, it was a really cool little movie. And DICK GOT TO BE AWESOME IN IT. You really have no idea how much I'll forgive for that.