#inconsistencies with nagisa's sister

[ritsukaaoyagi]

think my gripes with loveless is just everything post-goura

[algernoninwonderland]

Pacific Rim The Black: wow, it sure is a show that exists, huh?

That’s the nicest thing I can say about it. It’s not awful, but it’s not great. I wouldn’t say it’s worth your time.

Everything is a little too inconsistent and generally meh to be truly enjoyable, is the thing.

The premise isn’t uninteresting at all, Australia hadn’t been talked about all that much in either films, but then the pacing isn’t too great, the plot exists, I guess (but you never watched Pacific Rim for the plot, honestly) but lacks proper focus. It’s a bit edgy but not in a good way unfortunately. Cheap shock value that falls flat. The worldbuilding is decent enough. They really want to get you watching the second season but it’s hard to feel invested in much of anything.

The characters... Exist. They’re not really likeable or memorable, there’s Protagonist-kun and his sister and tiny boy Kaworu Nagisa and a whole bunch of murderous Aussies with Evil Aussie as their leader, also knockoff alcoholic Newt and grown-up child soldier Major Kusanagi. Character writing is very cliché stuff but not in a good way, and lacks substance. It does the job, but they’re not very engaging. The voice acting is... Eh. Not really sold on that part of the show, really. Nothing criminally awful, nothing outstandingly good either.

There are scenes with really nice lighting and others that are frankly quite awful. Sometimes, they get the scale right between the characters and the background art, sometimes they don’t. It’s a bit weird honestly. The art direction is okay. I guess.

You rarely feel like Jaegers are these huge things, the fight animation is decent but the effect animation doesn’t sell you the sense of scale (and in general it looks pretty awful), neither do most directing decisions, which undermines the whole “giant robot” premise. These big things move way too quickly. There’s no sense of weight to most things happening on screen. The mech design itself isn’t too great, compared with the films; but the UI design is actually pretty cool, and I like it. The AI is tolerable. The kaijus look okay-ish, too clean, not gnarly enough. Sound design is forgettable. As a mecha enjoyer, I was a tad disappointed. As a toku enjoyer, I was underwhelmed.

Drifting looks hella boring and unimaginative. Which is really surprising since this is an animated show. Go ham, you guys! Evangelion did it right and that show is old by now. But no. Have some generic floating memory bubbles that don’t look impressive in animation instead.

Polygon Pictures has really improved since Knights of Sidonia and Ajin, their Pingu show looked genuinely great. In Pacific Rim The Black there are moments with actually good character acting in there, it’s just a shame they are so far and few in-between, the framerate thing isn’t great but you ultimately get used to it. Nothing is absolutely jarring, except for the few moments when the characters’ expressions don’t match their lines every now and then. Some unfortunate and frankly unnecessary boob shots that feel out of place are thrown in there. I wasn’t awed by anything happening on-screen, unfortunately, All in all, the animation is nothing special, neither brilliant nor downright trash.

All in all it’s not absolutely terrible, but neither the writing nor the animation managed to keep me hooked, and I had to force myself to go through the whole thing.

[dendylabyrinth]

'Stories From Across Mirrors' Announcement!

This is something I have been cooking up recently! It's a series of posts written with prompts related to Endless Mirrors! But the catch is that you write based on battles you had! This includes your team members and the opposing team members. Basically a prompt series revolving in-game mirror battles!

So, for example, you write about your team of Sister Momoko, Coolmura, and Touka encountering the Magia Report squad copies: Sister Momoko tries to exorcise these hellspawns away (which WORKS??!), Coolmura already shot Felicia-Chan and is aiming at Iroha-Chan next, and Touka is stuffing Madoka-Senpai inside a sack for further studies.

Rules and Notes:

-You can switch up your team if you want, like putting Coolmura and Madoka against a Solo Madokami to get to a specific scenario. (For example, I added Madoka to my Haregi Sayaka + Valentine Nagisa mirrors team once I encountered a Madokami + Coolmura team in mirrors since I got an idea for a scenario involving those 5)

-Plot Inconsistency? Mirror copies to the rescue! Don't worry about trying to find a plot-suitable explanation for why Haregi Madoka and Oriko are trying to kill your Summer Homura: they're both(?) copies! Also, characters whose existence doesn't make sense in the present can be said to be nice(?) copies (Examples being Hanna, Touka, Mel, Holy Alina, etc.) so abuse this to create the most chaotic matchups you can! Like Yachiyo and Kanagi fighting alongside a Mel copy and weirding her out with their behavior.

-Action isn't mandatory; whether you write about the actual fight or skip to the aftermath of the fight is up to you.

-How the actual fight went shouldn't matter (AKA 'who knocked out who?' and 'who went down first?' aren't necessary unless you want to)

-Length can be what you like, be it a short 250 words prompt or 3 chapter long.

EDIT: God I feel dumb for forgetting this part, but Ashley is free game! Since its impossible to write about her in JP Mirrors, you can consider Ashley same as Iroha: available to everybody! be it to battle with or against.

I know these rules seem constricting, but they're here to make writing these challenging rather than difficult.

Anyone is free to contribute at any time! I will be posting my first once soon to serve as an example.