animatedminds
animatedminds
An Animated Mind For Animated Times
214 posts
Giving words to all those little things we wondered, glued in front of the screen when we were young. A few cartoon-ified thoughts from a prospective sscreenwriter A. I. Ricco, to befit the best the animation world has to offer!
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animatedminds · 11 days ago
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Gumball Season 7 Random Thoughts
Watched the latest season of Gumball, a show I've always thought was up there as one of Cartoon Network's (Hulu now, I guess) greatest alongside Dexter, Courage and the Powerpuffs. The season's awesome, and I had a bunch of random thoughts pop into my head that I thought I'd jot down.
"The Astrological" is instantly one of my favorite episodes in the show, up there with "The Scam." The show is at its best when the situation just devolves into condensed chaos and Gumball and co both go along with it while being just sane enough to realize things are getting too nuts.
They leaned back into "Gumball, Darwin and Richard are the cause of all the family's problems" a bit this season, after walking back on it a bit in the last couple seasons.
Likewise, they leaned back into "Nicole kind of low key hates her family" as a joke, which got downplayed a bit in later season as well. I don't know if I like either choice much.
"The Gourmet" isn't just a great semi-sequel to "The Fury," it has one of my favorite occasional jokes/moments: when we see that Gumball is way more like Nicole (and vice versa) than it seems.
Kind of interesting that they also leaned into a "Anais is a smart person, so she's an inventor who makes wacky creations like robots" when that was never really a thing with her before. It's the Penny Gadget pipeline: if you're a smart person in a long running kids series, eventually you're going to be building robots.
It never really hit me until The Amadain that there's been a slow trickle towards Penny having a bit of a mean-spirited sense of humor as the series went on. Don't have a problem with it. It makes her scenes with Gumball and Tobias more fun, and it beats her just being exasperated all the time.
Speaking of The Amadain, that's two shows for kids in the last few years that have had a Midsommar (very much not for kids) inspired episode (the other being Amphibia). Just funny to notice. Two nickels and all that.
I love how whenever Frankie shows up he's either surprisingly heartwarming or pure evil, and his latest appearance has him be both at once.
I hope Carrie gets an episode that's not specifically about the romance. Not that "The Letter" is bad at all - it's another one of my favorites - but the best thing about the character is that she can do both wacky hijinks and romance stuff (and again, "The Scam" is my favorite episode, and did have her do both). Penny too, tbh. I liked how she was included in the regular supporting cast in "The Climb."
Richard is apparently one-quarter chicken.
Principal Brown being a complete menace who should under no circumstances be in charge of a school is one of my favorite running gags in the series.
Them having a literal "eat the rich" message at the end of the first episode was just... *chef's kiss.*
That's most of the big thoughts that really stuck. This is the usual streaming animation thing of only being half of the overall intended season, and I really hope what comes next comes next fast, cause this show is great and deserves all the content.
This was the most gorgeous season yet, and you can tell all the heart that went in the show the first time around is still there.
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animatedminds · 1 month ago
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Saw The Live Action How To Train Your Dragon
A pretty great rendition of a pretty perfect story. They didn't change the story much (like, 90% of the dialogue is identical) which isn't necessarily either a perk nor a fault in my opinion. However, it is worth noting it leans into a strength due to the original script being - in my opinion - one of the strongest scripts from an animated film that I can recall (hyperbolic, I know, but I do genuinely feel that's the case). It's an extremely solid narrative, and thus easy to translate into a new telling while retaining the strength of that narrative - that is, the ball is in the adapters court to fail, and they didn't. Besides the things this movie has to say not just about not letting tradition and prejudice rule your morality, but also about how terrible conditional love is no matter the ways those doing it try to justify it (man, it's crazy remembering the rest of the franchise and how far the characters came, and going back to the first movie's story and remembering how terrible a dad Stoick once was), are just as if not more important and meaningful now as they were when the first game out. Something I always look for in a live action remake is whether the film uses the live action medium in a worthwhile way when remaking the story and its visuals, and... yeah. Nobody told me before going in that the action sequences would be this good, folks. People ought to be talking more about how well choreographed this movie is. And plus the film is gorgeous.
It's colorful and vibrant, the costumes and the sets are a delight to look at, and when they chose to change the appearance of somethings they made sure to do so in a way that were likewise a delight. As a fan of good visuals, nearly all of the dragon designs made me lean forward in my seat.
In short, loved it. Recommended.
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animatedminds · 3 months ago
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Extend this to when people try to insist power scaling is more important than narrative, as well.
"How ridiculous is it that this guy from the middle of nowhere was about to outwit Jacked Mcbufferson using his established flaws and defeat him without being stronger than a freight train. I hate it when the plot gives characters wins!"
Duh. That's because it is a plot, stories tend to be about overcoming insurmountable odds, and the whole point of making characters strong is for the intrigue of finding fun ways to circumvent that strength. It's a feature, not a bug.
the most annoying people are people who don't understand storytelling. they be like "oooo how convenient that this thing happened to the main character in the very beginning". yeah no shit. that's why the story begins here
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animatedminds · 3 months ago
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A Quick Annoyed Reaction To The Lilo & Stitch Backlash
I just drafted a whole lengthy post ranting about this and explaining why a lot of this backlash is getting offensive, and maybe I'll post it if someone wants to see it. But mostly I decided to dial it back and just vent off steam. The short of it is, as someone who's been in the support system of single or troubled parents almost this exact situation, the things people are trying to claim about the ending are not as positive as they seem to think they are. I don't really care that the film is different. I myself don't have much interest in seeing it. But the things I'm seeing the fanbase say, on the other hand... It's actually increasingly skewing towards outright demonization of single parenthood and the kinds of decisions and sacrifices single parents make - I'm giving the benefit of the doubt and presuming without realizing it - and I've spent the last few hours increasingly exasperated as the nostalgia brigade tries to speak for experiences that aren't theirs. People are out there taking a very real, very difficult and honestly often very positive, decision single parents make every day in regards to their children and their hopefully strong and positive support systems, and trying to claim it's something amoral and horrible and the opposite of what it actually is, just for the sake of weaponizing it against a remake of a film they enjoyed when they were kids - and it's frankly that's not a good look.
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animatedminds · 3 months ago
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In Which Thunderbolts* Hits A Bit Of Animated Nostalgia
Without going too much into spoilers, was anyone else distinctly reminded of a certain Samurai Jack episode during the climax to Thunderbolts*?
I was, and it had me grinning ear to ear.
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animatedminds · 5 months ago
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The Day The Earth Blew Up
Oh, people call me Daffy They think that I am goony But just because I'm happy Is no sign I'm looney tooney! Went to go see The Day The Earth Blew Up - spoiler alert, it's great and you should go watch it - a few days ago, and really wanted to give myself a minute to put thoughts together enough to make a post about it. This is really the little movie that could, left to pull itself up by its own bootstraps when its home company wasn't interested in it - and helped across the finish line by the little studio that could. Praise for bringing us this movie rightly goes to Ketchup Entertainment, and always should: getting this made and released, let alone marketed on top of that even the little bit it is has been, must have been an enormous hassle and a huge gamble, and one I sincerely hope pays off for the studio. They deserve it, and animators could always use more safe havens out there.
Onto the movie itself. Now, I'm a huge classic Looney Tunes fan, with pre-Jones (Clampett, McKimson, and others in between) Daffy Duck in particular being my favorite. So even if I weren't locked in to support the animators and studio, this would've been an instant watch just for that. This film draws largely from Porky and Daffy cartoons, naturally, but in particular their run of "two roommates" cartoons like Porky & Daffy, Porky's Last Stand and Porky Pig's Feat. To be the most precise of all, this movie is an evolution from Looney Tunes Cartoons - the most recent major Looney Tunes television series which aired in the last decade - with much of the same production team, and which also drew mostly from that era for its depiction of Daffy and Porky.
This was a very good pick for a number of reasons, but the reason that really wowed me the most was in the narrative. This movie wasn't just fighting to get itself released, it was also a risky experiment in a kind of storytelling Looney Tunes has never done before. This is as far as I can recall the first ever Looney Tunes feature in theaters that solely starred Looney Tunes characters and their worlds, without filling the space with guest stars or live action characters like Space Jam or Back In Action, filling the space with cartoon reruns like The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie, or using the Looney Tunes characters to fill for other existing characters like Bah Humduck.
This movie had to answer the tough question: "can these characters that were created to work within seven minute shorts carry over an hour of story?" Looney Tunes has always been a franchise about trying new things and reinventing themselves in new ways. They needed to eventually ask this question. And the answer is... they can, and pretty well, actually. Porky and Daffy's classic dynamic are a good pick for that because they are a very archetypical duo. One is sensible, but naive and easily overwhelmed. One is off kilter and destructive to the other's plans, but also driven and a doer who makes action happen. This is a classic character duo concept that is pretty tried and true: maybe of all the Looney Tunes characters and their dynamics, it might be the best starting point for a film like this (though this wasn't actually the first attempt, but more the attempt that actually made it to the light of day), because it's one that traditionally works.
And work it does. It's the building block on which the plot is able to deliver structure, while still maintaining a world where everyone is as Looney and off-kilter as you can expect from a Looney Tunes production. Their number one ally is a brilliant scientist who is obsessed with tasting things like sponges and rock shavings. Their nemesis is an alien whose master plan involves world domination through bubble gum (played by Peter MacNicol and man do I miss him as Doctor Octopus). Things get weird. And they get weird while actually building endearing character arcs in a way you wouldn't expect for characters like Porky and Daffy that still neverthess work perfectly for Porky and Daffy. In the classic Porky and Daffy set up, Daffy is a screwup, one who drags Porky into insane situations and usually blows things up instead of fixing them. And the movie leans into this, exploring how and why they still work as a pair and as friends despite this, having an actual emotional core without getting so serious that it loses the core that these guys are here to make you laugh.
Visually, this movie is great as well. It's an offschoot of a television series, so there's a bit of more simplified character designs than you might be expecting, but it utilizes those rather than acts in spite of them, making the simple but exaggerated designs a part of the humor and adding a gorgeously vibrant color palate and sense of background and setting to make the whole thing really a treat to look at. And this is just a random note, but you'd expect a Looney Tunes movie to be very cameo heavy, as well. Both Back in Action and Space Jam, though pretty great imo, both leaned heavily into the "hey look guys, it's Tweety / Granny / etc" or "haha! Bugs is doing the Rabbit Season bit again! remember that?" vibes. But this film surprisingly has very little of that. There's cameos and references, don't get me wrong, but it's mostly to older, more historical Looney Tunes characters like Gabby Goat and Buddy (the one that hit me the most is outright obscure, as one the main characters from my favorite Daffy Duck cartoon - A Pest In The House - is a recurring background character). I know some people were disappointed that the alien villain in this wasn't Marvin the Martian. But looking at what they made in the end, I get it. That isn't the kind of thing they wanted to do with this film, it stuck to its guns on that, and I love the film for it.
Now, like with any comedy - any movie, for that matter - there's a couple things that didn't hit me as well. A few jokes here and there that didn't land as well as the others, but that's to be expected. This is a nitpick, but I wish the very last punchline of the film had a bit more set up earlier on to call back to, just to really push the humr of it. And plotwise, without getting into any actual spoilers there's a pretty major shift in the climax of the film that I found myself wishing hit the movie a bit earlier than it did. But that's about it. It's a pretty darn good movie, and I'll almost certainly be seeing it again in theatres if it doesn't get pulled early. I said it before, but go watch this film! Not just because it deserves support, but because it's fun. Watch it if you're a Looney Tunes fan. Watch it if you're an animation fan. Watch it if you're a comedy fan. Watch it if you just love to laugh and aren't self-conscious about laughing at something silly. Because silly it is, and that's why we love it. I'm hoping more Looney Tunes projects see the light of day, but it's not looking likely. I'm hoping more Porky & Daffy content gets made, but that doesn't look likely either. So I'm going to enjoy the hell out of this while I can, and I recommend you do as well. Now you know why I'm dizzy And do the things I do I am askew and you'd be too If the Merry Go Round Broke Down
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animatedminds · 8 months ago
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Moana 2: Immediate Reaction
Saw the Moana sequel, a lot of what I felt about the movie has already been said, so rather than a review as much I'll start with something fun I liked that nobody brings up. I know this sort of thing is hit or miss with some fans (no pun intended), but the way the adventure got a tad more slapstick even in comparison for the first one (which already liked its slapstick), while not overshadowing how effective the characters were, was very fun. Especially around Moana herself, who might have taken Rapunzel's place as the most slapstick Disney Princess heroine. Moana's practically got Jackie Chan protag vibes in the sequel: extremely capable and badass, but also extremely unlucky and accident prone in a way that's constantly messing with them yet doesn't hold them back. I've always liked the joke of highly unlucky yet still badass characters, so that made me smile a lot.
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animatedminds · 1 year ago
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I don't get to post about Star Wars too often, but I do enjoy this so much - something I've greatly enjoyed about the current canon over Legends is that they've been trying hard to get away from Legends' habit of going "the Jedi were cold manipulative dogmatists with no compassion or ability to empathize with others" and emphasizing as much as they can that the Jedi - for whatever their flaws - genuinely cared about helping as many people as they could, genuinely tried to connect with and uplift others whenever they could, but just became increasingly out of touch with what forms that drive to help others ought to take and how to actually adapt themselves to the world around them.
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Here's why I enjoyed this scene so much: there is so much mutual respect going on here. There's teasing that is good-natured and makes people laugh, there's consideration and compliments being made, but most of all, everyone is listening to each other. They might rebut a point here or there, they discuss it a bit, but they're honestly and genuinely listening. This scene also comes with the context that, even though it's Qui-Gon who issues a "challenge" (and ultimately the scene where Qui-Gon explicitly admits that he did it to prod the Jedi Council members into taking a vacation), it's the Council themselves who come up with the idea to go to Kwen and have an outreach celebration on a personal level. This scene comes with the context of how an earlier scene had a callback to mentioning that Qui-Gon was asked to join the Council, a plot point from Master and Apprentice where they directly said they wanted him for his different point of view on things. But mostly it's a scene where both the members of the Council and Qui-Gon very clearly respect and like each other. The Qui-Gon of this book, the Council of this book, point out that they are thinking about others, just on a bigger scale, and that that's important. That that is helping the galaxy be better, lighter, more balanced. That this isn't about the Council not caring, it's about the Council being so busy saving entire planets that they don't have time to do something smaller scale for themselves. And that it's not about a lack of care or that Qui-Gon cares more, just the direction of that care. I can vibe with a Jedi who had gotten caught up in helping people on a galactic scale (that it's better to help a thousand people than just one person, if you can) because that's what this is. Not a lack of care, just a gentle reminder to get back to one-on-one helping, not because it's somehow "better" for the galaxy, but because both are good. Honestly, I've always been on the hill of, "one of the Jedi's biggest problems is that they believed their actions would speak for themselves and thus had absolutely terrible PR because they thought people would look into the truth of the situation" and I think that's one facet of what's going on here, it's about PR and getting the stories of their good work out, more than it is saying that the Jedi weren't doing good work. Of course they were, but this was a nudge towards spreading the word of that. This scene felt honestly good faith addressing that to me. It took care with understanding why each side's motivations were valid and important, along with making it clear that this was coming from a place of community and love, that Qui-Gon respects his Jedi family and they respect him. So I was totally down with this. (Star Wars: The Living Force | John Jackson Miller)
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animatedminds · 1 year ago
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Star Wars Covers by Alex Ross
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animatedminds · 1 year ago
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I [Want To] Do Animation To!
In a move I can only hope is clever, I'm going to start pivoting this channel a little from just being my random goofball thoughts and pretentious reviews about animated media into showcasing more of my own work. Over time, I'll start using this blog not just to comment on animation and art, but also host more work I've made, old specs and scripts, etc, I can't really do anything with any more, etc. With that in mind, I'll start with reintroducing you to the animated/visual novel-style short I wrote and directed, with the help of a pair of very talented artists a couple years ago: The Seminars for Better Heroing!
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I'm especially proud of this one, particularly because I'm currently in the process of retooling it as a 22 minute animated series and (fingers crossed) pitching it to prospective studios!
Enjoy the sarcastic reminiscence of a retired hero / villain pair, and look out for more Seminars content coming up as well!
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animatedminds · 2 years ago
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On Moana 2:
I'm torn. On the one hand, the various areas of Polynesian folklore and history are collectively an extremely interesting subject for an animated period film to cover and it bugged me that a lot of it got left on the cutting room floor the first time so Disney could tell it's vaguely self-digging "anti-princess, but actually a princess" story.
So a sequel to explore that more would be amazing. Plus Moana was a fun character who felt like she only somewhat got to stretch out and shine in her own movie, so more of her without the story holding her back sounds great in the same way Frozen 2 really improved the amount of space Elsa had as a character (in my opinion).
On the other hand, because of the way they did it the first time around, I would really just prefer if they made a new film set in that region that's actually based on an actual folktale.
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animatedminds · 2 years ago
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Too bad it's impossible to get a picture of the narrator from Love Is War. Also, Ian Sinclair is Rashid? Losing some fighting gamer and voice over enthusiast points for not knowing that...
Ian Sinclair | Thursday, 03.02.2023
Got a favorite character voiced by Ian Sinclair across any anime or video games right now? Here are my personal favorites down below.
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animatedminds · 2 years ago
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animatedminds · 2 years ago
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Watching Moon Girl: Season 2
Can't decide whether this show or Spy X Family has the best character faces for reaction images. Both shows are just top notch for extra facial expressions. Also the second season is even better than the first one go watch it right now.
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animatedminds · 2 years ago
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Catching up on "My Adventures With Superman"
I've been watching this one but doing it in the stints thing where I take a break for a couple weeks and then binge a few episodes at once. Just did one of those to catch up to the present and thought I'd share my reactions to the latest episode... seeing as it features my favorite of all of Superman's villains: the illustrious Mr. Mxyzptlk.
I know I'm Super late on this (ha), given that this is six episodes in, but I think I'll just give my thoughts on the two-parters coming up as they come/conclude and then my final thoughts on the show as a whole when its over. You can already get a bit of that towards the end of this, though. Episode 6: "Kiss, Kiss, Fall in Portal." So, this one reminded me of Spider-Verse. Not the movie. The original comic. And not in a good way. It has that same "we'll introduce the multiverse to give every bit of continuity ever made an established place so that we can homage everything... but actually devalue everything by forcing it to fit into a very rigid and contrived paradigm" feel.
For a while I've been starting to think the people who make this show don't actually see Superman's world and characters as especially interesting, which is why they've mostly been turning them into imitations of other things. The Legion of Lois'es, especially, really brought that feeling out: so the ultimate evolution of every prominent Lois Lane in every previous Superman property we've ever seen is... to cease to be Lois Lane and become Flash Gordon instead? It's such a jarring contrast for the primary Lois in this series to be someone whose main motivation is to become a reporter and help people by getting answers, only for the show to say "once you become the best you can be you won't even need to be a reporter anymore - then you'll be a cool sci-fi hero and do cool sci-fi hero stuff!" - and it then feels like Lois feeling insecure falls flat because none of these characters even do the things she or any other Lois we've ever seen cares about. I think it mostly hit me this way because this doesn't really get a resolution. The characters give the Multiverse Police the slip (which I do love, see below), but there isn't really a "I'm going to be the best I am because that's who I am, not what you think I'm worth" moment from Lois. She (and thus, the show) just kind of internalizes it.
I might be being harsh on it, I think. But it's comes off an idea that was intended as a homage on paper but ceased to work as one in execution - and instead maybe felt a bit like the opposite. On top of that "we love these characters and put them on a pedestal through nostalgia, so what if characters in-universe actually had the same reactions to those same characters and treated them the same way" is pretty much an idea I've never seen work out - it always just ends up turning characters into reflections of fan reactions, instead of allowing them to be... well... characters.
I'm explicitly not getting into the Clark implications, firstly because everyone overreacts the hell out any time an evil Clark or Clark-like character shows up in anything these days, second because the issues with the concept are evident even before Clark comes into it, and third because - due to the first - I think people are focusing too much on Clark specifically and not enough on how the concept as a whole wasn't great to characters involved (except Jimmy / Jalana because this show's versions of any Olsen continue to be a treasure).
And fourth because the "the characters discover some versions of their friend went bad" does actually line perfectly well up with the season's overall plot about Lois' dad being a paranoid nutter, but the Kryptonians maybe being evil and Clark being an unclear cog in the gears of this strange mystery. It's a plot decision I really liked in this show: I'm suspecting we might end up with something Iron Giant-esque, where all evidence points to the hero being a monster, but the hero refuses to fall into expectation as their friends refuse to fall victim to the fearmongering.
But... overall, all that is why I really liked how the main characters' ultimate response to the judgmental multiversal police squad was a "screw you guys, we're going home" without even a goodbye. Screw that noise. Presumably the Lois'es from other continuities who pointedly aren't among the Lois'es actually in the judgmental multiverse police squad did something similar. Live your life as yourself. Good message, though I think show could've been more overt about delivering it.
On the flipside, Mxy was fun. He was a tread to Lois & Clark's "more malevolent Mxy who wants to be a god" idea, which is... hate to repeat myself... fun. But being fun it what's most important where Mxy is concerned. It's a little less interesting to have a Mxy who needs power because he wants to be a god vs a Mxy who already has power and finds concepts like godhood boring, but I don't think traditional Mxy is in line with how this show envisions threats, and regardless he was delightfully tricky and - let's face it - is one of the two big things absolutely carrying the episode (the other being Clark and Lois' relationship, as usual).
All in all, the show continues to hit me two ways at once: I really love the way it's interpreting the characters and their relationships - again, Jimmy is fantastic and Lois and Clark's relationship is nuanced, adorable and continually keeps me invested - but the plot decisions that surround those great characterizations keep missing, often feeling like they're wasting good concepts.
I hope I'm wrong about the feeling I'm getting that the writers maybe have some overall apathy for Superman's world and characters, but bit by bit the show keeps making me wonder - I just wish the show would start feeling excited to reinterpret these characters rather than flippant.
Either way, though, fun episode. More Mxy is always a treasure.
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animatedminds · 2 years ago
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I love the way women depict women.
A lot of action and fantasy media is male-focused. Made by men, for men. Sometimes made by women for men or by men for women but in both of those cases, male-centric understanding of the world often dominates nonetheless.
Created by Stan Lee and John Buscema to be a sexy female Hulk, original comic book Jen falls well into that category. And the comics love putting her body and sexuality on display, right down to the infamous "BECAUSE YOU DEMANDED IT" naked jump-rope issue. You know the one. No, that wasn't a meme. That was a real thing that they did with this character.
But the MCU's Jen is produced and directed by women, for women. And the difference is palpable.
In male-centric media, female characters are frequently confrontational for no reason. Take something like Stranger Things, which introduces a second girl to one of its three cast herds in its second season, and they instantly despise each other from the second they meet. It isn't until the third season that the showrunners stop doing that. Women presented by men are often catty and mean to each other by default. Because that's how men view women.
But then you sit down to something like She-Hulk, something made by women for women, and you get things like the bathroom scene. A group of women come into the bathroom to find Jen bloody and disoriented. And they lightswitch into Mission Mode.
Because they know.
They aren't entirely correct in their assumptions, because Jen's dealing with supernatural fantasy bullshit. But they know. And they drop what they're doing to help out a strange woman they've never met who seems to be going through a familiar crisis. Whatever they were doing before, it doesn't matter anymore. Nothing matters more than forming a wall, talking this woman through what she's going through, and getting her to safety.
Because that's how women view women.
And we don't get to see enough of it in media. In an ocean of bromances, there are too few scenes of women even just stepping forward to have another woman's back.
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animatedminds · 2 years ago
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An Animated Mind, High On Gear 5
As a fanatic for both Western animation and anime, more than one person in my every life. I've more than once heard the comparison to Tom & Jerry, as it's the one the creator gave, which is interesting. Tom & Jerry animation didn't often look like that, but that's what Oda states as his primary reference so he would know (I really need to start reading the manga). At least when it comes to how Toei chose to animate it, what this really did remind me of was Fleischer, especially that "fluid noodle people" reference, and it's a shame that's not an name on people's lips more regarding this. This is pretty much exactly how I would imagine an anime Popeye adaptation would look when it really got going. With a little bit extra: Gear 5 is like a glorious mix of Fleischer and Tex Avery with classic shounen (One Piece being one of the last examples, design wise, of a very strong traditional artistic style), and it's wonderful. Which actually leads me to single animator and era this kept reminding me the most of. Crazy as it is to say, the whole time I was thinking of John K, and late 80's animation in general. That drive to merge classic animation designs and styles with modern animation techniques was pretty much the font of up and coming animators during that time, and when there was a serious budget behind it? And also Richard Williams, because I'm like 80% sure there was a bit in that sequence (the part where Kaido gets burnt up) that was directly inspired by the Thief and the Cobbler. Actually, I'm changing my answer of "being reminded the most of." The more I remember of Richard Williams' work, the more this feels at least in part like a love letter to one the masters, Williams included. I'm hearing about people giving the animation choices crap just because of what it chose to reference, which imo is silly. As if watching, loving, being amazed and learning from all the animation you can and being driven to build new and astounding things on top of it hasn't been the origin story of nearly every animator all over the world. Are anime fans really still out here seriously believing that there's only one region in the world anyone who's anybody actually pays attention to?
Because the people who actually make anime and manga have never, ever believed that. Art is universal.
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