#over this season feels..... rushed. like the pacing was very strange and i'm a little startled they're releasing the new season so soonafter

[dimension-20-every-introduction]

There are no new Introductions in Dimension 20′s The Ravening War episode 6 (finale).

[the-autistic-duck-fan]

Analysis number two and we're doing Journey Beyond Sodor, a movie I saw pretty recently, so I wanna get my thoughts out before they fade from my mind. (I swear I'll do season 2 after this). I will say, overall, I had a lot of fun with this movie. No, it's not perfect, but I liked it enough to actually purchase it so I can watch it over and over again. More beneath the cut since this post might get a bit long.

So, first of all, I love James in this movie. He has the vibe of an obnoxious older brother in this movie and I'm living for it. He's just petty and a jerk and I enjoy it. He also has a bit of an arc as he does go to help Thomas in the end and for the most part stays focused on that goal, even if he initially had selfish reasons for doing so. As a long term James lover, I was very pleased with his characterization in this special.

So, let's talk about characters introduced in this movie. First we have the three experimental engines, Lexi, Theo, and Merlin. I fully enjoyed these three. They're so quirky and I couldn't help but enjoy them (seems to be a pattern with this analysis so far). Lexi is very enthusiastic, despite her belief she can't do anything. I can kinda relate sometimes. Theo is also someone I can relate to, being nervous and jittery but also trying to be kind. According to his wiki entry he was intended to be autistic coded, which I think is kinda cool. Merlin is also just so enthusiastic but clearly a little bit...well, special, seeing as he thinks he can turn invisible by letting off steam and closing his eyes. But I love his sincerity and adventurous spirit. Overall the experimentals are a strange little found family of imperfect individuals and I love them.

Lastly, we have Hurricane and Frankie. I can't explain it, but I really like Hurricane. I'm kind of a sucker for villains whose hearts aren't really in it. While he goes along with Frankie, I feel like he's genuinely nice in some places, like saving Thomas from melting and risking himself, just sort of held back by the engine he associates with. Speaking of her, I did not like Frankie. I mean, she's a good antagonist, but she reminds me of my grandma (an awful person, I'm sure you can guess), who pulls a lot of similar stuff to her. Overall I didn't like her and I wasn't sure she really deserved the redemption she got.

Characters aside, I also enjoy the plot. It feels pretty well paced for the most part except for a few spots where things felt slightly rushed, but they did have to squeeze things into an hour and twelve minutes. Overall, things felt varied and the adventure was fun. I actually expected the experimentals to show up and never be seen again, but they came back towards the end, which I was happy about.

Also the song numbers are very enjoyable. 'Somebody Has to Be the Favorite' had me grinning like an idiot the second it started. Beresford's back and forth number with Thomas was also enjoyable and I liked how Thomas tricked Beresford at the end (it made me wish CGI Thomas was a bit more cheeky sometimes as he's more nicey nice in the stuff I've seen). 'Hottest Place in Town' has been stuck in my head for days and I really like Frankie and Hurricane's singing voices. Side note I love that they repeat it when James shows up at the steelworks but he's not buying it. Thomas' song about wanting to go home was probably the least noteworthy and I don't like his singing voice that much. 'We Can't Do Anything' was a fun number that made me think the experimentals were stuck between the depression and acceptance stages of the grieving process, though it was a little long. 'The Most Important Thing is Being Friends' is my least favorite, but it's not bad and wraps up the film pretty well (plus I like Henry's joke of 'what did I miss?' at the tail end after him being gone through the whole movie).

So let's talk a bit about things I didn't enjoy as much. First of all, Thomas' voice is a bit irritating to me, though that isn't exclusive to this movie, it's a problem I have with other parts of CGI Thomas. It's especially noticeable when he sings as I alluded to above. Another thing is something I touched on a bit earlier, I didn't like that Frankie got a redemption arc. Well, it's not even an arc. It just happens. It felt a little too fast after everything she did and I don't think we really saw a redeeming side to her. I understand that it's a kid's film and they want to give it a good ending, but still, it bugs me just a bit. Though what I like about this special is enough to counteract these for me.

Journey Beyond Sodor was one of the first pieces of CGI Thomas I saw and I'm glad it was cause it gave me some optimism and the hope that made me look for the good in CGI Thomas. I thoroughly enjoyed this special, even if it's imperfect. Sorry if this seems all over the place, I'm still finding how I wanna do these and this was more rapid fire thoughts than anything.

[yuudamari]

I'm curious about your thoughts on the anime adaptation of the hidden inventory arc , you said in one of your reblogs you "it sucked " i couldn't realy see what was bad about it ... maybe bc i was really focused on the animation instead of general quality.

Anyway thoughts?

Thank you so much for the compliment <3 means a lot!!

As for jjk s2...How do i put it. I guess to me it was just a pretty bad adaptation. You see, jjk as a whole has terrible pacing issues, but i feel like in season 1, with a little bit of padding they were able to fix it. Even in the movie, they addeda lot of padding for it to make sense and the pacing to feel a bit more natural, so i guess i was expecting that they would do the same for this season. To me, Hidden inventory is the best arc of all jjk. Not only for what it tells but in general i just feel like its the One thing of all jjk that gege was clear on. Like it's the one thing they had fully written. So it was very well done, even with the pacing issues specially through the end. I was very excited to see it animated!

And the first ep was great really, so it brought my hopes up. Animation was great, the padding and extra scenes they added in the first ep made me believe they were going to do that for the rest of the season then they...didn't? I feel like it was all strangely directed.Episode 2 and was decent. Nothing to write home about but nothing terrible. Episode 3 and 4...I find myself not liking stretching out the fights, specially the first fight against toji. The point of it, to me, was how fast it is. How little Satoru could do and how quickly he goes down. But also, it could be that i just do not like toji, and seeing him take up so much screen time specially when the lasst episode felt so rushed well. I hate that.

Episode 5...well it was just a whole mess. You would never guess 2 years have passed since Riko's death because well, they just don't tell you at all do they. It's scene after scene with no time to let you digest Suguru's feelings, or anyone's feelings at all! Haibara's death is almosst unimportant to the anime, Nanami saying that Satoru should do everything for them is a thrownaway sentence for it. Even Suguru finding the kids...the kids are barely even on screen. I truly feel like there was no emotion or feeling to any of it all. And you reach the climax, the confrontation between Satoru and Suguru and it was also weirdly directed. The cuts,the animation, there was no..heart to it. At least to me. I feel liek the voice acting wasn't even fitting to it, strangely. I don't know it all felt incredibly lackluster, like they just wanted to get it over with so they could go to shibuya's all action scenes. It's upsetting ssspecially when they did emotion and feeling so well in the jjk0 movie

And for the animation...well it was terribly influenced by the big hit that chainsaw man was, and I take issue with that. Animating More frames doesn't make it good. There was no...attention to detail i guess you could say. Or to omuch to it? attention to detail that was unnecessarily given attention to. Does that make sense. Like you're trying to make up for something, like every shot has to be aethetically pleasing but you're not worrying over if the animation or the shot or the direction is helping the story.

Sorry i went for so long alsksdsh but those are my overall feelings! Of course it's all personal, and no one has to agree with me. Maybe I just had a lot of expectations?

[kitkatopinions]

Thoughts on Arcane?

NOTE: I know nothing about League of Legends, I came into Arcane with no knowledge of anything to do with League, so everyone, please try to refrain from possible future spoilers by discussing major plot in the OG product. My brother-in-law already dropped some very big info and similar to going into the Final Fantasy remakes, I'm trying to avoid any other spoilers for something that's been around for ages. Thanks!

First thought, the animation is very good and very iconic.

Sometimes the faces seem a little off, but the whole effect looks almost like paint, and overall, it is very good. This is such a well made and just beautiful show in terms of the art, animation, and aesthetic.

The combat is a step above most things I've seen, but not as good as the early RWBY seasons by a long shot. On top of that, some of the weapons looks... Over the top, particularly the gauntlets the Vi eventually wears.

They're just a bit too big imo, it makes scenes go from cool to goofy really quickly. Still, the fights are worth watching and by no means are they bad!

Most of this show was directed very well, but they would do these strange jerky cuts that often didn't work for me. There also was this weird scene where two characters were about to fight, and then it suddenly changed into those characters doing the fight in slo-mo while the show switched to like, a completely different design, and then they just... Did the battle like normal all over again at normal speed. I can't blame them for experimenting with styles and stuff, but it just really took me out of the moment.

Some of it felt a little rushed and hurried in act two especially, where it's like they were trying hard to establish character dynamics early on to get to the juicy stuff later. I don't mind it so much especially since it's just the first season, and as a general rule, I try to give grace during a first season. But I'm really hoping we get to see more from many of these character interactions that feels a bit more fleshed out next season.

On that note, there were some writing choices I thought were strange. Characters that I kept waiting to have at least something of a good storyline that haven't gotten one, story elements that had suddenly come out of nowhere and didn't add much at all so far, moments that I feel didn't make much sense or things they had characters do that I thought either should've been gone into more detail around or should've been different. During the last three of four episodes especially, my sister and I were watching it and going "if they just tweaked this, this scene would be so much better," and "if this had been set up like this, this would've been such a compelling moment!" I feel like the show could be better than it is. The writing isn't life changing, it could be stronger and fuller, but it's still for the most part good, especially when you compare it to a certain color themed webcartoon.

But as for some praise, most of the characters are nuanced and interesting, the concepts are amazing and could lead somewhere great, the design is off the charts, the voice acting is pretty dang good, the dialogue is nice and even if the pacing is a little rushed, the way everything was delivered including stellar VA performances and animation makes everything feel more genuine and believable. Also I don't know how to describe 'this piece of media feels like it would be great for transformative works, even more so than most pieces of media,' but Arcane has those vibes. The more simple looks the characters sported in the first couple episodes were okay, but the character design in the post-time skip looks were really good. In fact, the show generally did a very good job at the time-skip. I was seriously thrown off and worried when I realized one was coming so early, but they did it well and the results were cool. Also, the battles are never easily won, our mains always seem to take hits, both emotionally and physically, and that's good. Also, they know how to get tension into a scene in this show, they're really good at using their music, too. The show is exciting, it throws curveballs at you in a way that (most of the time so far,) doesn't feel cheap or badly set up. Best of all, they're really good at making you care about the characters and what happens to them. I've mentioned before that I tend to consume media primarily for character arcs and character interactions, and I think this show has the potential to serve up some amazing ones. One of my favorite characters in the series - who I won't name atm because of possible spoilers - is so cool, and I just want the best for them because they deserve it.

I think the show maybe could've benefitted from taking a bit more time, but hey. they wanted to set the groundwork early, and I can't blame them.

There are some red flags. There were some things that made me feel uncomfortable at the very least. SPOILERS INCOMING: SKIP THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU WANT TO AVOID SPOILERS.

For example, the main villain in the first season is someone who revolutionaried too hard and was actually super detrimental to the people he was supposedly advocating for to the point where the lead yells at the people oppressing her and her people to go wage war on her people in order to take him out - which I feel like something like this could've been done, but the way they did it was clunky and sent some weird messages imo. And for another example, in the last three episodes, they kill off two different dark skinned women (or at least, I think, the second death hasn't been exactly confirmed, but I'm pretty sure it happened.) And one of those women hadn't been given much outside of a flimsy connection to one of the main male characters, who was Very Sad about her death. In another scene, our main protagonist tore a prosthetic off of someone's body in a fight, etc... On top of that, I'm always annoyed when there's some piece of media that establishes a clear system of oppression - in this case the privileged Piltover versus the poor Undercity / Zaun, including a thick layer of obvious classism - and then instead of the main villains being say the people who helped build that system or the people who have worked to maintain that system in clearly corrupt and selfish ways, they say "Hmm, who will our villains be? The people who grew bitter after being oppressed for so long? The children who were traumatized and also suffered from this oppression?" Idk, it's all red flags. I'm really hoping that the show gets better after season one, but I can't pretend that some elements of the show so far didn't make me at least a little uncomfortable. There were ways that the writers could've gotten the desired effect without doing anything problematic. There are ways Vi could've won her fight with Sevika without ripping off her prosthetic, there are ways they could've portrayed Viktor's experiment going wrong without murdering Sky. Also, I'm already side eyeing some of the fandom for hating on one of the women of color essentially for getting in the way of a ship they - and I - like. I love Mel Medera and nobody has to put her down in order to stan Jayce and/or Viktor.

Aaaand on the subject of Jayce and Viktor, for my final thought, I wanna say that Jayce and Viktor is an amazing ship that I adore, and I love them so much. They had such a well done, natural dynamic. There's tension, but they obviously care about each other so much, and this ship has all the makings of a great 'mutual pining / they both think it's unrequited' dynamic and would make for an amazing slow burn. I'm going to ignore that the writers made Jayce say that Viktor is like his brother. Omg the looks, the energy, the way that Viktor smiles at him, the way that Jayce seems touchy feely with him, the deep connection and friendship, the great back and forth... I love this ship.

[stanharu]

beastars episode 24 thoughts!

this post got kinda long i have Many Thoughts on this one

Overall I had fun watching this ep but I could really tell it was rushed and there was so much that got cut, which makes me super sad. our fears about the finale having pacing issues due to all the added scenes & rearranging were confirmed & it rly sucks, but i'll elaborate more on that in a bit.

this week's ep covered the end of chapter 92, chapters 93-97, and included small bits of chapters 98 & 99.

so the ep starts with the ED and the latter part of the tunnel scene with ibuki and louis. i liked the visual effect they used to show that they were in the dark. louis' voice acting was also On Point. for the most part i think this scene was done pretty well but I can tell it's being rushed also. I really wish we got more buildup and narration instead of just jumping straight to ibuki telling louis to shoot him. the way it is in the anime feels less impactful imo.

also im sad we didnt get to see this in the anime

before i move on, i wanna talk a bit about louis and his relationship w/ the shishigumi and ibuki. i feel like in the anime quite a few of the lil moments that really endear you to the shishigumi and also ibuki were either cut or kinda glossed over, which is strange to me considering how much effort and care went into the ED. it's very emotional and good but i feel like maybe anime onlies are missing out only seeing the anime and the MV. but idk.

legosi and riz's fight was quite rushed as well. there's so much narration and dialogue missing from it and that really rubs me the wrong way. It wasn't all bad but compared to the manga I just don't think it's as good. I will say tho that I really liked the sequence w legosi and the moths. I thought it looked really nice and was pretty well done.

also i liked how the backgrounds had some anti-yahya graffiti, its a nice touch imo

it says "high quality horse meat"

I was happy to see legosi do the "tell me more" pose but I'm honestly disappointed that the anime took out the whole exposition about why legosi did it. like i feel like without that it's just legosi being weird when he has a reason for it!!! This is just one example of the anime taking out crucial narration during the fight.

I also think it's kinda weird how they changed how louis shows up at the fight. im not sure how i feel about riz just charging at him like that, but i liked how legosi kicked him before they ran lol.

i dont have much to say about pina's small scene but I did wanna say that during my first watch thru of the ep i was too distracted trying to read the graffiti behind him that i didn't notice him getting his phone out of the dumpster and calling the cops lmao

it says "devour yahya"

and now... here we are... the predation scene.

overall i thought it was pretty well done but, like the rest of the ep, i could tell it was also being kinda rushed. some important beats werent given enough time to really sink in, and there's a few bits of narration taken out of this part as well that i find disappointing :^(

tho i did like how the anime called back to this scene in s1 when legosi mentions utilizing his strength.

also this part where louis is remembering ibuki had me like😭

I also really liked seeing louis cry. I was crying too sjdflskjdflsjkdf. i thought that scene was really good, its prolly my favorite part of the ep tbh. getting to hear the whole predation scene voiced made me kind of a mess lol. i really liked louis' expressions throughout this whole ep too. studio orange used their whole louis expression budget on these last 2 eps lmao.

seeing legosi instantly get all beefed up was great too. he looked a little ridiculous but i kinda loved it lol. he's so huge and poofy. i love him.

big pomeranian

anyway, im also sad they took out louis' line about being reduced to a flashback character lol. instead he tells legosi "be a hero" again which... im not sure about that change. i liked the part with riz thinking back about tem tho. tho imo the way riz realizes he's in the wrong feels pretty sudden. again adding to how rushed the whole ep feels.

before i move on again i just wanna say legosi looks so cute. even all puffed up and covered in blood. how does he do that

baby boy baby. i wanna ruffle his cheek floofs.

i think one of the things im most disappointed about from this whole ep was how the fight got wrapped up. i really like how the cops show up and totally shift the tone in the manga jslkdfjskljdf. im also really sad we didnt get this interaction

tthe anime really took out most of the sillier moments from the finale, which makes me pretty sad to think about. i know the anime and manga have different tones but pls let the boys be silly sometimes!!

the next part where legosi and louis finally establish their friendship was really cute tho ❤️ even tho it was pretty different i enjoyed it a lot.

BABIESSSS 🥺😭❤️❤️

the wrap-up for this arc and this episode gave me whiplash sdjlfkjsdf. it literally speedruns thru legosi's predation conviction, being released, louis & haru's graduation, and legosi deciding he's going to drop out of school. that is SO MUCH AT ONCE. also i was holding out hope that legosi would have his new years call with haru after the fight instead but that didnt happen!! so it just got cut!!! kinda mad about that tbh. legosi and haru having a lil scene at the very end made up for it a lil bit but that's still one of haru's few moments in this arc that's just not included.

we didnt even get the part wher legosi learns he can't marry haru bc of his conviction.

ive been really hoping for a season 3 announcement once this season ended. with all the background allusions to yahya, the added plot point of someone stealing elephant tusks, and sebun and melon's lil cameos in this season, it seemed to me that studio orange was kinda teasing a 3rd season. but now, with the dismissive way the anime ended, and paru's note from earlier today, im less sure about the possibility of a 3rd season. i'd still like to see the rest of the series animated, but i guess we'll just have to wait and see if more anime is announced in the future.

if we do get another season in the future i just hope that we swing back around and actually address the things that got completely glossed over in the last couple minutes of this episode instead of charging forward w/o touching them again.

i really think the finale for this arc should've been two episodes at least. not including the tunnel scene. i think then things wouldn't have felt so rushed. people have been saying this season really would have benefitted from at least 1 extra episode and i cant help but agree. some have even suggested a whole 24 episodes just for this arc, but i think that this arc couldve been done properly with 12 or 13 episodes if there was some better prioritizing on what to include and what to cut.

like i dont mind not getting the parts about legosi's family if they can be addressed somehow in a future season (or if theres no more future anime seasons thats a plot thread that doesnt have to be worried about). i could have lived w/o seeing sheila & peach's chapter animated if it meant more time for the focus of this arc. and was the kangaroo red herring really necessary?

adaptation wise, i dont think this season was as good as the first. i still think it did fairly well, but i know that it could have been much better. ive been excited to watch this season with my friends once the dub releases, but now im wondering if i should just tell them to read the manga instead. sighs idk. perhaps it comes thru better as a bingewatch, or perhaps im being a bit too harsh. idk. at some point ill do a rewatch and see how i feel about the season as a whole, but that wont be for a while.

if you've read this far, thanks for reading my ramblings!! it's been fun to make these posts every week and im gonna miss getting new episodes every week.

[otakween]

I'm Standing on a Million Lives - Episode 13

This is treated as season 2, episode 1 on MAL, but season 1 episode 13 on Crunchyroll, weird discrepancy there. I'm going with "episode 13" since that's what's in the title card. This was a strong episode with a lot of meat on the bone! The animation was nice and we got a new OP/ED. Definitely gets me more hyped than if this was just a 24 episode anime.

Notes:

-I feel like this episode was really nicely paced with no wasted moments. They were able to give us a recap of the end of season 1 without giving us lazy flashbacks and then we dove right into the Jiffo (Jiffon?) arc.

-Not too crazy about the OP or ED, but maybe they'll grow on me? I liked the scream at the beginning of the OP and the animation that went along with it.

-We get some random Nijisanji crossover in this episode

I know nothing about these girls but I guess the white haired one sings the opening. I love these little nods to Vtubing even though I'm not a super avid Nijisanji viewer. From what I've seen, they seem really fun.

-Both the Keita and the Kahvel scenes felt kinda rushed. Keita got over the isekai shock in record time and Kahvel's painful goodbye felt kind of awkwardly placed. A scene that heartful belongs at the end of a season, not the beginning.

-I still don't buy Kahvel's love for Yusuke. I think irl you'd get over someone after 15 years, especially a 14 year old boy lol. Everyone in the fandom acts like it's the defining, emotional moment of the show though.

-Loved hearing the Vaikedaam's accents :') we honestly don't get enough accents in anime. I'd love to see an anime where the MC has a thick accent. (I'm sure they exist, but nothing comes to mind).

-I thought it was kind of a strange choice to make the ED feature the loli form of the Game Master. I don't think that's really meant to be a reoccurring form no? In the manga he shows up as a dude as one point. Oh well, she's cute so I guess it's fine lol.

-Very nit picky, but I noticed some repurposed animation in the ED which made it feel a little cheaper unfortunately :/

[community-hyperfixation]

heavy spoilers under the cut/my impressions/ramblings of season 2 mythic quest

first thoughts: ...hm. HM.

second thoughts: pretty funny, enjoyable character moments for what we DID see, poorly paced

this episode/season was so fucking surreal for character development just like. the pseudo180 of brad's character/how we view him. the strange 2 episode long CW arc break for funsies. dana rachel pursuing their dreams in different ways (good for them). ian and poppy just?? leave??????? DAVID???? sir what were you doing on that roof

this season was also just like. way more drama-centric than last season? which was really uhh fun to see imo. idc if this is an unpopular opinion or not but i think mythic quest excels as a drama with comedic elements over a comedy with dramatic elements.

i feel like in this season especially we see how a 9 episode format is detrimental to the show. the first season felt too slow in the beginning and dragged on, but this second season? felt really rushed to me? and the pacing felt a lot weirder in terms of the 2 CW episodes.

i almost wonder how the season would've felt if they pushed the second CW episode before episode 5, knowing that the viewer would've been confused by it and then gotten that context during season 5, like a reverse of the episode 5>doc+bean etching we saw. or maybe even gotten rid of a one of the arcs entirely

looking back at the episode list, i'm realizing that a lot of these pacing problems were probably created BY quarantine/covid situations+the fact that they didn't want to kill CW's actor? the first 5 episodes just don't feature f murray abraham in person which is like. understandable lmao. but the fact that they did it this way really restricted them because now they can't cut the footage or edit his in person scenes into earlier episodes where he's seen on call.

the way they ended the show doesn't hmmmm feel natural enough? There's some really sudden shifts from the s2e08 episode to 09 it feels like there's like a monthlong gap in the timeline of the show, but it's not reflected well in the main plot. it's very jarring to see characters talk about conversations that the viewers weren't here to see happen on screen. it's a very "show don't tell" methodology, but there's a reason it works

like in ep08 we see poppy crash the servers worldwide and then hang up on montreal. wh. where are the consequences for this?

i almost feel like this season's arcs could've been split up a little more equally and stretched out to two seasons instead of just one. i feel like david's arc(? plot with woman? straight line of storytelling? it didn't feel like an arc lol) especially feels unsatisfying, since nothing really happened with his character that ended well for him? ik for ep07 i expressed disappointment that CW got a happier ending with peter, but it feels like david never really "realized himself", if that makes sense.

i think overall this season is um? fine? but. and i almost cannot believe i'm saying this. i liked season 1 better. it ended on a very strong note, and slowly improved with each episode, and this season kind of... didn't.

unrelated tidbits i wrote but don't fit with the flow of what i'm writing:

i sat in on the zoom panel for season 2 and the writers mentioned taking actor into account for characters and we see that the most with brad's character. i. ngl danny pudi sprinkled a little bit of abed into the latest/ep 9 and it was WEIRD to see. (but i still enjoyed it)

I. DID THEY. IS MYTHIC QUEST JUST OVER??? LMAO