[Music]
Welcome to a new episode of Anime Briefries. We are your Motion Picture Podcast hosts.
I am Jon.
And I'm C.C. And when there's just too much cool anime to watch, we've got you covered.
Today we will jump from the small to the big screen by doing a bit of a movie marathon,
which will culminate in our review of the ostensible film finale to the Gritman reboot,
Gritman Universe.
Of course, we will present you with our picks for Best Anime of the Season.
Before all of that, there is still a bit of leftover TV stuff to get out of the way in the
quick and the dead.
Grab your popcorn and movie tickets, please turn off your phones and don't you dare sing along
to the song lyrics in the theater because we will smite your ass!
And definitely don't pause the part, we'll be right back.
[Music]
So yeah, quick and the dead. Got one technical review here for myself that Jon didn't watch.
I don't know how quick this will turn out to be because I wrote down actually more than
a tentative, which is the seventh season of my hero academia.
I did a full review for Season 6 technically.
I tried to keep this one a bit shorter maybe because this is basically a big old battle royale
from most of its runtime.
So yeah, what's happening with the students of A1?
Yeah, this is basically the beginning of this is gearing up for the finale.
Things Season 6 already put every little piece into play for that.
And now we're getting there.
Like we get like four memories recap episodes at the beginning.
They are not really necessary since my hero academia never takes super long breaks between seasons
and most of what happens is was still in my head at that point and I guess if one watched all seasons
you don't need to watch this, but they are part of the season they count I guess.
So whatever. And after that we get like the big opener where
Star and Stripe America's strongest hero and all my pupil writes in on her fleet of stealth bombers
as you who do as an American hero.
That's a lot already.
Yeah, she uses those as a support and to move around in the air because she can't fly
but she can use them as basically footholds.
And she clashes with Shigaraki because all four ones wants to steal her power,
which is her ability to apply new rules to everything she touches.
I briefly touched upon all of this in the sneak peak for season seven
or when I talked about that in our sneak peak.
But yeah, that battle is over.
That battle ends by Shigaraki actually winning and getting her power and everything.
She actually lets Shigaraki steal her quirk and take care of her body but it's like
imposing using that open opportunity to impose a new final order on this quirk.
Which is to oppose all other quirk so as soon as Shigaraki has fully absorbed new order into
his body it starts to destroy every single other quirk Shigaraki inherited from all four one
as his new host body.
So that was a bold move for first and she pays for that with her life but you know it
buys the heroes some time to come up with some plans before Shigaraki has reached full power
and everything.
So it was worth for that.
And yeah, Alpha one keeps calling Shigaraki the other me which emphasizes that
he's only seeing him as a tool and an extension of his own will which was one could guess
the way Alpha one had behaved from the get go like he's the master manipulator.
He's just using everyone to further his own goal and whatever.
So Shigaraki is that for him he wants just to be immortal I guess and
needs a new body for that to keep on doing what he does and Shigaraki is the chosen one he has
groomed him from being a kid for being that manipulated his life to become shitter and shitter so
that he would be susceptible to Alpha one's manipulations.
It seems this is maybe paying off for now or right now because it seems like Shigaraki is playing
into everything that Alpha one set up.
It seems like this but there are some wrinkles to that during the course of the season.
We see Shigaraki actually maybe trying to break free from that.
It will be successful we will see but that's definitely something that's running through the season.
So one of the big things and one of the big surprises and I'm gonna say again just with all my
reviews for this because it's a continued season full spoiler right this is coming
everything that's happening in the later parts of the season I'm gonna spoil the shit out of that
but there are some interesting things that are happening in the season besides the big
all we're gonna have our final battle thing.
It was teased before that since the villains of information they shouldn't have
there must be a traitor in UA since you've at least watched until season five John any guesses who
that traitor is. It's an unlikely candidate let's say that much.
A likely and unlikely.
Well I mean I was sort of suspicious of Hawks for a second there but you mean of like the students.
Yes of the students I can say that much before I give it away.
God there were so many students I'm having trouble remembering all of them.
It's from a person from A1 it's not one of the B team students.
You know how little that narrows it down in my own brain?
I don't know.
Okay so I'm sure after you tell me I'll be like oh of course.
It's Belly Laser Guy, Yuga Ayoyama.
Oh him.
He's the mole.
He always seemed to be a good kid like you know I wouldn't not have expected.
Demi's goofy is a bit weird but we.
Out of all of them but yes he just seems harmless.
He just seems a bit weird but harmless and we know why he's so weird.
There's a moment with between him and Deku in the fifth or six seasons where they go a bit into that
and we see like there's a connection at least the one-sided one and there's a reason why
Ayoyama wants to become a hero and Deku is kind of like the personification of what he's
trying to be in everything so this is a moment where Deku is like
questioning himself and Ayoyama is one of the people who gives him like a new drive and everything
so that was nice and that further removed him from my suspicions but it turns out
Ayoyama was also born quirkless just like Deku and because his parents were afraid that he would
be ostracized by society because of it because the way he was cited works in this show right if you
don't have a quirk you're nothing kind of.
This is what Deku experience anyway.
They went to all four one and asked him to give Ayoyama a quirk.
Bad idea.
Yeah no kidding.
I'm talking about making you deal with the devil.
Yeah which explains why Ayoyama was so attached to Deku in previous seasons.
Like he wants Deku to succeed and wants to support him probably because he feels guilty of the way
he received his quirk and wants to turn his fate around by following someone's example who
just like him was dealt a bad hand at birth and of course this further fenced the flame of the
discussion about hero idealization and the damage that is done by valuing quirks and conformity
to highly in this society.
You can easily make some connections to our real life and certain groups of people being
ostracized were not confirming to the widely accepted models and of society and character traits
chosen by society as the norm.
I don't know if Horikoshi intended to tackle this discussion with this and some other plot points
or if it's just evolved naturally from his story beats but neither of the two would surprise me
actually at this point.
So that was pretty cool.
Also the last season especially has shown that Horikoshi is really adept at setting up good long-term
payoffs very early in the story.
Here's is another example of that.
It also fits very well with one of the show's other main themes, parental figures
and the many different ways how they can support and fuck up their kids.
Like I almost parents thought they were doing the best for their son by making him conform to
societal norms but in the long run that's severely backfired.
Now all for one threatens to kill I almost parents if all Yama doesn't do his bidding.
And you know he had to lie to the group of people he wanted to be part of the most his
classmates so ironically by making him more like everyone else his parents doomed him to isolation
and despair because of it.
One thing they wanted to protect him from they brought upon him themselves.
This is a really good twist and payoff.
Sadly it wasn't handled as well by the adaption as it could have been.
The reveal of I am being all for one small should have definitely been what the fuck end of the episode
cliffhanger at the end of episode two or three of the season and said they put it at the halfway point
of episode three which in my opinion lessen the lessen the reveal's impact quite a bit.
Like that would have been a real what the fuck you know good ending for for that episode is like
what that guy I never would have believed it so but also again in hindsight it kind of makes sense
and how they fill in the blanks and everything and the way he was behaving before it all fits into
his character so it's great. And of course since he is a good kid technically you feel really really
sad for him it's heartbreaking seeing I am calling himself a villain in this moment because you know he
is a good guy and just wants to be with his friends does all he ever wanted.
So yeah and of course our main boy because he is the best boy they could recognize this and
reaches out to Ayama to tell him that doing one criminal act doesn't make you a villain for life
and that he can still be a hero using Ayama as an informant would indeed give them an advantage
over all for one for the first time because so far all for one has been always feeling a step ahead
but this turning Ayama would be something he probably didn't see coming so that's what they want to
do but the question is does Ayama need to do this to deserve to be forgiven in my opinion on the
surface this is fun like an uplifting turn of events and makes you think that Horikoshi believes
in reformation but only if quit pro quo is involved. I don't know how I feel about that actually
we'll see what comes off that plot point because like they beyond this point they haven't really
done anything with that instead of using our Ayama for the setup and everything but everyone just
holding judgment over him pointing at him in a room where he and his parents are chained to chairs
not looking at the wider context of big picture I don't know that felt easy to me but again also
pretty close to real life probably so yeah so eyes our eraser head comes up with a plan for Ayama
and the others they will try to separate all the important villains from each other and have that
big battle but all in different parts of the town/country and that was really the point where it felt
like okay the finale is approaching we have the stage this is where we're going with this this is
what we're going to do with this this is going to be a fun big ol' battle royale with different
parties fighting against each other not all at the same space but you know in different parts with
different character constellation everything on the bets a guy's side of things there's also some
stuff happening spinner is willingly willingly instrumentalized by all for one as a spokesperson
for the hitter or more for writers you know the heroes who look like animals or I don't know mutants
or whatever and those the writers see him as the savior from society's bigger tree which I
guess also plays a bit into the Ayama Ayama quirkless stuff and everything so this is one of the big
underlying themes in the season that Horikoshi seems to have been really putting a forward to
focus on at this point and yeah recap episodes aside once the season actually starts it sure
and wasting any time sometimes towards on death dredger man just like the second half of season two
like the final battle royale between heroes and villains already begins in the fifth episode of
this and then we have different split ups like with the help of shinsos and monomas of all people you
know the arrogant guy who was always like that the students from a one I'm the best you suck ass
but he can copy abilities and they so he copies a razor's heads abilities among other things some
and the heroes managed to lure all for one into a trap by making him believe Ayama is delivering
Deku to him then splitting up all the villains and heroes and sending them to separate locations like
I said with the teleportation technique monomastole from kuru kuru giri and yeah it's cool at first I was
worried we'd have the like the big free for all in a god damn parking lot because that's where it
starts is where the meeting happens between all four one and you know Ayama and who's bringing Deku
along but it was just the setup stage and then everyone gets sent to places who are varied enough
like there's a forest and then there's this big hovering closed off by energy barriers part of the
school where they try to trap shigaraki and then have a bunch of them fight it and Deku was supposed
to be there as well the problem is toga our favorite yandere has other plans and pulls Deku into
her location warp so he and ujaku have to team up first and he can't be in the fight against shigaraki
which is a big problem because he's the powerhouse and shigaraki is the strongest villain so the others
have to make duo while they wait for Deku to get back to them and this is you know where they
introduce like this ticking clock thing is like holy shit shigaraki is only getting stronger and
we're just we're just trying to fight windmills here and ridiculous but yeah that also of course
means that we get all the encounters that have been set up for a while and devours is all for on
showtovers is dabi slash toya ojaku was is toga and bakugou and deku eventually and a bunch of other
strong heroes in the handicap match versus shigaraki at least like i said that was the plan but
we have toga doing our own thing at least for a bit there and yeah shigaraki completely over
at this point is going for some real body horror shit with all of them hands which is especially
while since hori koshi has stated in the past that he is bad at drawing hands so he pushes himself
to draw them more often so he gets better at it so of course shigaraki now just attacks with a cluster
of five million hands all together he looks like tetsu from akira like in terms of body horror just
at some point becomes this weird mass of just hands and fingers and it looks gross and it's just
hand cancer it's just it's ridiculous you just to fina those giant hand enemies in
elden ring maybe he acted could yeah oh probably probably drew some of those but yeah um we have
that we also let that dabi slash toya i'm supposed to name him at this point i guess dabi since he's
still being a villain i was supposed to be cultivated into a fallback in k shigaraki didn't pen out
but he was too maniacal to control even for all four one which uff okay job well done and ever the
sun that you did not raise there so yeah it's interesting to learn that and this one of the first
big battles really we get we have shoto against toya against his brother it's not really a highlight
on a choreography or animation level at this point because it's basically then just shouting at each
other more than anything else so the actual fight kind of sucks but it's alright in terms of story telling
and a decent preemptive wrap up though we get the second stage to that for that um to this particular
story at this point i was like it feels like this should have been a two on one with both shoto and
endeavor doing their part to bring toya back and i understand that shoto is one of our main heroes
and it's the thematic mirror piece to toya but they barely had really any on screen interaction
until now so it feels more thematically scripted than an actual natural conclusion from a character arc
standpoint i kind of stinks it would make sense to do that exactly and i was thinking that because
it's like wait you we're just gonna have them square up you know at least endeavor should be part of it
in my opinion the whole that was a mission statement and you have to have the last season when
it was revealed that toya is dobi i was like okay should be getting the whole family in there
right we we're gonna have the feminine like a fight or family therapy mask as a fight
and then everyone against you know trying to get toya back and everything and orikoshi seems to be
aware of that at that point already because shoto literally says when he delivers the final blow
our past will cross even if it's forced which is way to comment on your own writing orikoshi
yeah that's no i don't know i don't know if if that is sim acknowledging the shortcoming of storytelling
or if it's accidental but either way i feel like does that make it better or worse
but yeah so it eventually thankfully endeavor also joins the fight and we get a good
aftermath after that with endeavor and hawks facing all for one who of course uses toya to trigger
endeavor and almost takes him out but it makes endeavor acknowledge once again that he's pretty
much solely responsible for abandoning his son in the worst way possible even if all for one did
some of his usual manipulation to make things worse your responsibility for it getting this far still
rests on endeavours shoulders alone so i'm always happy when the short acknowledge is that because
in the beginning i was like is he actually going to take responsibility is he actually going to be
like well i'm just man will do what man do no he's just howikoshi knows that he is was a the
shittys that and he's gonna make him suffer for that again and again and again until he finds
a way to kind of redeem himself for what he did to his son so i always appreciated that
we have jirou and sukojomi appearing in the fight against all for one but they're in over their
heads and let me tell you just in general the fast two seasons have proven that hawkoshi is not
afraid of permanently damaging his heroes none of them right he's not afraid of like like he rips
one of uh jirou's ears off technically like she's forgot what a hero named where she's to go with
with the sound powers and everything and she has like these these plugs hanging from her ears kind of
where her ears looks like like like plugs and one of them just gets torn off in the fight it's like whoa
okay so we have mirko the the bunny hero that was introduced earlier just she already lost like a
leg in season six and now she's losing an arm and i think the other leg it's crazy like this can
it gets really bloody important that i did not see coming and yeah that fight is in itself cool i feel
like the first half of this season animation wise is kind of not the best my hero academia has been
but they set up enough interesting story beads and uh character moments to compensate for that
and the animation picks up in the second half so maybe in the first half the uh teams from ball team
from bones was was uh still engaged with one of the my hero academia movies or something like that
so that would make sense because like i said it picks up in the second half and then the battles get
really fun look really good so that's nice it's better than if it was the other way around so
but yeah we get this even though it's not super well animated at this point the fight against
awful one is fun we have endeavour finally deciding to not fight for becoming the new ideal hero
but for the next generation and that puts a need bow on his character arc in my opinion already
like he could never have truly replaced all might or even daco because he was too
ashamed to alive of misguided ambition inferiority complexes and self hatred and the choices that
result from that with a little help of from awful one of course led to him losing his family and a lot
of people losing their lives and i think at this point he realizes and knows that he can't overcome
this mental burden in his own lifetime and the only way to make up for his past since is by securing
a future for the next generation that might be able to do better and this is definitely one of the best
character arcs in the show in my opinion which i which i did not see coming i think none of us were
fans of endeavour in the beginning and i'm still not a fan but i think like his arc and his struggle
through the entirety of this shows probably some of the best realized stuff writing wise that
Horikoshi has to offer in his story like to make a already unsympathetic character even more unsympathetic
once you learn his character background and then actually being able to turn some of that around
somewhat sympathizing with the decisions he makes down the road and redeeming him in some aspects
in a believable way and not gifting that to him right he's not like he's just his family came to him
and says like out of nowhere hey you're forgiven everything is fine which we've seen a bunch of other
shows and everything be the bigger man and whatever uh no no he has to fight for that he has to
suffer for that and he's still he will at the end of the show he will not be completely there because
he has lost so much and he's responsible for all of that but he has made the right decision of being
like no not my place to be this idol anymore because i can't be that because i'm such i'm so much
baggage and that baggage has already damned so many people in my life so i'm gonna do everything to
make things better and lift up the new next generation lift up show to lift up a day cool lift up
whoever is there from the current students and make them actually succeed and become the new light
for the society instead of me being that and that's great that's that's good that's good writing in
my opinion and i like that and what i also like was bakugo calling shigaraki a nutsack faced handy man
is absolutely what i wanted from that confrontation that's that's that's pretty good that's pretty good
yeah and what's also pretty good is yuki hiashi uh in this season uh with his core is devly
taking that soundtrack to another level like epic endgame feel gotta say just some moments that we
some some cues and some uh melodies we didn't have in the previous season some are brought back but in
the more like epic end game epic and fight kind of um mix so it's really cool we have the big threes
a sand pie characters coming back like lamellian and the other two um and lamellian is the first one
to make a dent in shigaraki's psychological armor by bringing up that he probably didn't have any
friends or he wouldn't be helping to destroy everything because you have a friend you know
you just don't do that or you shouldn't be uh doing that because you know there are people
who have things that matter to them that might be not the same thing that matters to you and everything
so and then the little remaining splinter of the original shigaraki's like shimura consciousness
picks this up and protests loudly like a child like throwing a tantrum by bringing up two office
child or friends which catches like both tomuras and all four ones overriding consciousness of
guards like what the hell where did that come from uh although they regain control uh quickly
but yeah this is like okay he's still in there like the original person that was before they were
completely manipulated by all four one and this is what they could want it this is this was his
mission statement in the previous season like as long as i see a chance of getting him back
i will not kill him i will try to pull him out of that they're out of that misery and out of
all four ones control so we see this is the moment where we see okay he's still in there uh tomuras
still there and the heroes need to take every small victory they can get because otherwise they
are completely outmatched by shigaraki he's probably on the level of golden age all might right now
so even when the heroes get some big hits and he just shrugs them off kinder and he
it looks at one point like he kills off bakugo which is that was an effective cliffhanger
and he's a big all fucking hole in his chest and it's ridiculous and you're like holy fucking shit did
i kill one of the of one of the main characters and of course there's still some yeah it's very
dire but also edge shot just gets in there and tries to repair his heart by turning into a string
on whatever and uh best genius is also trying his best so that's still happening while the fight
is happening and he's not fully dead yet and i assume they're gonna bring him they're gonna revive
him in the next season i don't think that that is gonna state his way and we have some nice back-and-forth
moments in general in this match like there's some moments where you think oh they got an upper hand
on shigaraki like with the moment where's uh original consciousness shines through but then he goes
and fucking blows a hole into bakugo's chest and then we find out toya is still alive after all
after we thought shoto just completely obliterated his ass but no he did not and then all for one
after we think endeavour completely burned him up and he looks like a burnt up husk he has
last second ace up his sleeve and that is a capsule basically distilled from with fluid distilled from
aries power the girl from season four that our tier was rescued from what's named overload over
oh yeah uh that guy that guy remember that but i remember that you know that girl get
she has the power to reverse things to to turn basically turn back time she can heal wounds and
stuff like that with that but what all my all for one is using it for he just completely reconstructs
and rejuvenates his body which sucks because you know one of the things that were like oh well he
isn't that he's very dangerous and everything but at least he's severely damaged and if you get him
out of his suit and just destroy that he's just he's fucked and devor does that and then
forms like well no i still have this that bitch has had a mega elixir up his ass
and uh yeah the downside is while it rejuvenates him and restores his body it will keep
we vine we will wind him him until he sees us to exist like basically it will return him to i
don't know sperm or an egg that's the idea anyway he's gonna just be he's he's gonna get Benjamin
buttoned right so he's gonna turn younger and younger and younger and younger until he sees us to
exist so he's very aware of that and intends to use the additional time to help shigaraki escape
the trap the hero set up and then you know because that's his new body and eventually he will
have transferred his consciousness fully to him and everything and hey we finally see that smug
ass face of his that has been teased for a while i mean his face was super burned right um destroyed
by all might and everything and he was basically just a mouth but now we see his original face
and that getting younger and younger which is weird and we have some
sites uh we have this other side bit where um spinners trying to get to kurugiri and free him so
kurugiri can teleport all the people to shigaraki to support him and everything and we have some
of our other heroes trying to stop him like present mike and uh shougi so tentacle and there's a nice
character moment with shougi where he's like trying to stop the rioters and he's like hey we know
society has done you bear a dirty because you look different and they've ostracized you because of
that they've treated you badly they've done the same to me but i decided to take the high road and
become a hero instead so why not please try to be more like me right don't try to be super angry
and because this is not gonna do anything and you're gonna hurt people who don't have anything to
do with it like the people who are in this hospital we're also kurugiri resides and everything and
who want they want to get out i feel like that is nice in terms of a sentiment but
that those politics that this this moment apploys are a bit naive if if actual life hasn't has
taught us anything that's it's that but you know in a broad idealistic superhero story like this i
can tolerate it um the real problem is that like a lot in the season it feels somewhat rushed like
the ayama stuff like this um some of the stuff later on which considering how much the show was
dragging its feet for a half of season five this is surprising like i think uneven pacing is still my
hero academia's biggest flaw starting with season four on what i'd say season six almost got back to
form but now season seven is back to what the second half of season five was doing aka moving way too
quickly through what is you know what it's really good at the emotional character stuff and shows
this story deserved a full episode in my opinion because there's this nice thing where you know he was
fucked up by the villagers but he saved the girl and he's like hey i'm trying to remember just a
moment where that girl looked at me uh and was super grateful and was clutching my you know my weird
hands and everything uh that look creepy to other people and she was just holding them tight because she
was so happy that he saved her it's a really good moment and you know he says that i'm trying to
remember remember that every time someone treats me like a monster or something like that so i would
like to see a full episode featuring that storyline like from him getting from the angry youngster
you know who was angry it just being treated like like a monster to clinging to that moment of him
saving the girl at deciding no this is what i want to be i want to be a person that gets looked at
like that constantly in the way i can do that is by becoming a hero and that's why i'm joining the
hero course of you know of the of the school so it was like okay really nice emotional beat in there
should have been a full episode and i don't know if it's longer in the manga might be that we that
there's a full backstory there um i doubt it but that would have been great and it feels like it
feels just like it feels a bit rushed in this season so but it's good it i'm still happy that's
in there because it gives one i always like when they give the many characters in this show and
especially the students from a one or one a i don't even know what the proper description is here
but if they give them something to do and some interesting character beads because a lot of them
don't get that much you have the big we have always set the focus on shoto on
bakugo and on deku and that's nice too for some of them to to get a bit more there
and yeah we have dabi returning to the or dabi flying over to the all four one battle and
mixing things up there we have fog successfully dishing all four one hitting him where it hurts like
giving him uh i don't even remember exactly what it says but you know all four one doesn't really
show it but it definitely oh yeah he tells him all four one is like are you sure you want to
send your b team against me and hawks is like bitch uh you couldn't beat all might why would we send
our best to be with you oh okay that's pretty good uh so it's it's it's fun uh so uh yeah and
you know that really you see that sticks here because like he gets a super sinister lowkey still so
angry about losing to all right so and then we're oh man then the fencer starts dude because we're
getting some real smash bros everyone is here amvages and game on your left moments the one that
got the biggest pop out of me was the return of gentle and la brava from season five who get a real
uh season four the second half of season four who get a real spotlight scene and man was that
satisfying our loved and little goofy heartfelt arc and season four with the concert and everything
and there was like this nice breather in between the more serious stuff and i was overjoyed to see
them bursting onto the scene in a in a clutch situation as heroes and it was really cool and
after it gets even better after that because i get exactly what i wanted the whole to the rocky
family working together to stop the sunday failed on every conceivable level and bringing uh him back
from the brink of hell into the world of the living it's heartbreaking and beautiful and i loved every
second of it uh it's just like them going against him everyone using their ice powers um to trying to
restrain him uh show to then coming in at a clutch moment with ingenium like it's where you that's
where the animation is picking up because if you know anything about iida once the unleashes power
and goes super fast shit looks amazing and it does in this moment because they're basically at the other
side of the town or something like that and then like uh dabi is about to explode and take everything
along with him in a five kilometer radius and then like we can't get there and ears like
hold my beer and he puts uh puts show to on his shoulders and gives him like his visor
thought he is so that he doesn't suffocate during the trip or whatever that he can still breathe
and then he just goes full tobo speed and they're just in there in a blink of a moment and it looks so
fucking good and he just the last and and shorter just runs the last couple of of meters and then
just unleashes a full on super ice attack and manages to free while the his entire family was already
holding back to abbey and they managed to free him and cool him down and he doesn't die and uh
we have this nice moment of endeavour breaking uh together over over his son's body and sobbing
and is apologizing and it's really good it's really fucking good like this is everything i wanted out
of the storyline this is this is good stuff and uh i'm so happy that's that that's what we got because
at the beginning of the season it didn't look like it because we only had the square of between uh
a show to end um that was like well we're gonna get nope really they really went there and they really
really did good shit we have a really a really nice spotlight episode uh with a fight between
Toga and Ocho with a great emotional climax there as well uh which first of all surprised me also
that they got an entire episode because i i have made no secret about my opinion of uh my hero
academia failing his female cast members constantly by not giving them the focus they deserve
but thankfully this was one of the episodes that at least gave me a glimpse at what would have
been possible if the ladies got a bit more screen time like Ocho finally being able to reach out
and make Toga realize and verbalize that she really uh what she really wanted and that there's
someone who will let her have that without her having to be a villain is nice more build up and focus
on that over the course of the series would have made it work much better but it was still a good effort
of doing something with their storyline and at the very end there we get a dark night returns rematch
between all might and all for one where all might switches from being Superman to being Batman
has like the big old bad mobile and get done the fucking bats a bad cyborg suit with a bunch of
different tools and toys match to the abilities of the of the students from from one a so it's
basically like one powerless all might fighting with the support of all of his students against his
archnemesis and it's fucking cool at cell and yeah uh or in kosher sure is a in a us coming book nerd
that's that's for certain because he's just he's just got that bad man at the moment he really is
and it's great and then we got a final season teaser like we have Dikus Granger of Edgigaraki at this point
trying to control heading to control his anger at beginning because he saw that Bakugus uh on the
brink of that managing to do that and realizing that he can probably still pull tumour out of there
and we have all might fighting and all for one and then the season is over and we get a pick
all cliffhanger and we get a teaser that next season will be the final season so that's where we end
here and that's where we're gonna pick up next and i don't know i i assume it's gonna hit they
gonna hit us with that either next summer or next fall depending on how much work they're gonna put
into that because it's definitely maybe even a bit longer i haven't checked the preview yet and i
don't know if they've announced a date for that yet but it's coming and then the show's gonna be over
so yeah i i was really happy with the last two seasons um maybe like season six even a bit more than
season seven in terms of it being more consistent but this definitely uh had a lot of
nice wrap ups and combinations of long build up stuff some need surprises um like big old cool
shonen better royal and everything so there was enough in there was like oh my god this is this is
really cool took a bit to get going in the beginning and for the animation to get better but by the
end i was really really hyped and uh enjoyed every second of it so yeah looking forward to the final
season i don't i i hope it's gonna end in a really cool way and i have some um some ideas of what they
will do i mean most of that will probably it's probably straightforward they're gonna pull tomorow
from all four ones grasp and um uh make him you know change his ways i guess and all four one is just
gonna run out of time and revert to like i said sperm or an egg and then just be dropped on the ground
i don't fucking know but something like that and um we'll see if there are more sacrifice along the way
because all might is not in the best shape even though he's doing his darnest and fighting like a madman
in his badman suit and maybe heal die as well we'll see i hope they will be able to revive barco go
and yeah we'll see how this wraps up and i'm looking forward to it but that's it for my not so quick
review of seven of my rock anime because again i wrote down more than i expected john you have
uh something that you watched from beginning to end but that we're not gonna make a full review what
what is that gonna be i mean that a couple things by faith you know the thing really worth
mentioning is a grandiser you yes um i don't have 30 minute long review to go into please don't
but you know i've not having watched the original grandiser i'm not sure how this compares to it
because this was like this is like a 12 episode thing where the original grandiser was apparently 74 episodes
so i don't know just how compressed it is or what they removed or what they changed and i
it's insane i don't think all of it is actually even translated i'm not sure i want to go back to an
old 1970s anime and rewatch that but i mean that changed the where the story is taking place right
they changed the local i'm in japan to the initial setting yeah but then the eventually do end up
going back to you know the cobb toe facility in japan and this and they sort of start to make it into
more of a global story because when the vegans are like hey so every day you don't hand over Duke
fleet to us we're gonna destroy a different world capital and the basically new Washington DC at one
point i mean could couldn't i have waited until next year no sorry not much of value would have been
lost then i guess i mean aside from all the innocent people but if they only bumped the white house then
maybe they would have hit the right person i mean yeah yeah they sort of do that and like
everyone on earth is like well i guess we have to hand over Duke fleet
we're over and you know we kind of touched on this story before but it's like
Duke back on his home planet used granddyser to fend off some bad dudes but the power of granddyser
is absolute and it kind of takes a hold of him and makes him out to be uh makes him out to be a bad guy
oh it's the word i'm looking for like a fugitive because he ends up dealing a lot more damage
than he intends and apparently he has killed uh his uh to be wife but not really jk law she ends up
joining up with the vegans and it's a lot of it is really on the nose because the vegistar shaped
like a giant wedding ring i mean it's an old serious technique i don't know if it was that over in
the old in the old version but i wouldn't be surprised yeah i was trying to look up and having
trouble digging it up but i'm looking at i'm like guys come on really that's like really on the nose
i mean that can be fun right like if you can laugh at it and if the show is maybe also poking
some fun at that and be like or being being like not painfully earnest but like super earnest about
it in a fun way i don't know if that is the case for this one no think like it really straight
really straight i mean it can also be fun like i think it often works better when the show is play
it straight then if it's like mocking itself like i in certain parts i'm really sick of like uh show
constantly winking at the camera now let's play it straight play it earnest and act like you don't
know what you're putting on the screen like that can also work uh you know depending on how how the
story is set up but it seems like in this case it didn't i mean i i didn't dislike it i'll say that
there's no part of the story i was like god this sucks i want to stop watching but there are parts
where i was like yeah okay sure all right um like i said uh during the sneak peak i didn't
realize just how it entwined this was with mass and gurz so you know i'm good
coji and all of his crew and i was like oh yeah okay that's cool i guess that was probably
for the people who had watched mass and gurz before and they're like okay we
will ease you into it here's something that you know i feel like that was probably the uh aim behind it
yeah which um but that makes it weird like we didn't get a full on massing our review uh
massing our reboot series in recent time did we i know there were a couple of
uhs but i don't think we got like a full on uh tv series remake of this which i would have
expected to come before the god damn sequel series that we got so weird i don't know if it was a
remake but there was a 2009 tv series and i guess i i don't know if that's a remake
for uh and might have been i'm not sure and then there was the 2018 movie uh infinity so you know
it is still at least existed in the um it's in the public space super robot cultural zeitgeist as it
were i mean it can probably never disappear from there as long as super robot works exist okay yes so
the the 2009 series was apparently a retelling okay original but again still not watched and i
would like to eventually so and that's still it's like 15 years ago so like i would have expected
that damn just like okay we're gonna do a massing our reboot thing and then immediately after
they were gonna go into granddys and we're gonna do the whole shabang i would have expect him to
then but also maybe this granddys issue was it just created as a tie into the video game maybe like
to cross advertising and everything yeah i mean it kind of makes a little bit of brand synergy
kind of the way um dragon ball diamond sparking zero were dropped on the same day so
and it makes sense right like if you have like more visibility due to those
existing at the same time and maybe worth of mouth and everything if you played the game
the ps4 or ps5 game that it's just come out i i thought it when it was like super cheap on steam and i
haven't touched yet i hear it was all right yeah it seems like like one of those uh beat year platinum
games like um it looks like a sort of average character action game yeah yeah that's what i got out of it
i still have it on my in my back lock list and i wanted to get it when it got super cheap but i haven't
done so yet yeah the the plot goes weird places where the vagans are trying to you know just
systematically destroy the entire planet because they can't get the one guy they want and grand
own super robot called aqua dizer and there's a big square off between that uh i am having trouble
remembering characters names because they actually throw a surprising amount at you in this show
there's duke sister maria who can kind of sort of see the future it's weird and not
100% explained but it's okay don't worry about it all right ruby uh duke is supposed to be married to
uh rubina but her sister terona is like i will have none of this fraternizing with the enemy certain
and she's like very uh very straight up you know just plays it straight the whole time but
rubina is supposed to have been dead uh but she kind of wavers between you know oh but you know
the vagan empires the greatest of all we have to capture and find duke fleed but then
when it sort of becomes apparent that hey so all of the things that happen back on uh planet fleed
weren't exactly dukes false she's sort of like well me hey baby we don't have to do that thing
and she tries and goes to see him and at one point she does go see him and she and she and
she and duke get married but just kidding it was actually terona in this guy whoa
because she's like if i marry you then you can't harm my sister any longer you awful man and it's like
Jesus christ all this culminates in taking the fight to the vaguestar and although they're saucer
beasts and there's a ton of them in mashinger ze gets a massive power-ups we can actually fight on
the same level as a grandiser because like there's a massive power gap between grandiser in the
vagans and mashinger because you know that stupid awful terrestrial technology who cares
there's this one character kasado who's supposed to have been one of the uh
fleed knights alongside duke but he's all like um i don't like how strong you are duke fleed
and he's just out to kill duke and there's just moment where it's like oh maybe he can turn
out okay nope he's dead nevermind whoops and i realized i'm speeding past a lot of this but i
feel like they were speeding past this because they can then 74 episodes down to 12 as far as i can tell
and they have this big ol fight with the vagian leader who's got a face inside his face and it's
a weird and it's it's very go-na-guy and it doesn't really matter because rubina ends up getting killed
in the end and it's like oh didn't get the good ending anyway okay it was fun it was it moved about
150 miles an hour but it was a fun watch if you want something that's like you know a fast watch
you could check it out um but look finding where to watch it though i'm sure if you know your way around
the internet you'll be able to find a way to watch it like the way the both of us had well i know you
ended up dropping it but i ended up sticking it out and had to find ways to watch it but it's out
there um the quality of the production kind of goes up and down a bit but i don't ever feel like
it was egregiously bad it was like there's maybe a couple frames here and there that were like
but it wasn't like aggressively awful so i still think it was enjoyable for what it was so yeah and
you know like i said get your brand synergy from playing the game maybe eventually i'll play it in
report back and be like hey you know maybe this game was good or maybe it was bad who who knows
i haven't looked up any metacritic or open critic scores on games for a real long time so
i just know that granddiser is a we're fucking looking robot when he is in a spherical form
beautiful yeah the UFO and i mean it is called in the original UFO robot granddiser so there you go
he is that it's just one of those very unusual mech designs that you really never see anymore
probably for a good reason but it's fun it's fun that it's like well they didn't it's very
same time about it really right like that they still kept it like as this round fucking UFO
typical yeah like a saucer yeah saucer yeah so yeah yeah because the uh vegan uh baddies of the weeks
are called saucer beasts yeah so there you go this is cool just going with the theme i like that
yeah so uh check it out if you just want your hit of 1970s nostalgia because it definitely feel
it feels modern and modernized enough but you could still tell that's yeah it's part of you
there a little bit of its time especially especially granddiser's design in particular everyone
knows kind of got a little bit of a facelift so you know that's fine but you know i guess then that's
in for the quick interdead and uh yes so you know i guess it's up to the next thing let's get over and do
some movie magic all right yes uh we initially intended to maybe do granddiser's a full review and
or like i mean you made my academia season seven for review but whatever there was something
sneaking up on us we're like oh this came out and that was the movie gridman universe and we
reviewed the first two showed it connect to that movie which was s s s gridman and s s s
dana zenan and we like those shows and we're like okay maybe just review movie but uh at the same time
it's like maybe it's not enough for the full segment so why don't i check out a couple of other
movies because i intended to anyway because they were also landing on my doorstep so before we get to
granddiser universe uh granddiser universe before we get to gridman universe i mean they're both g u
yes they're very confusing two words completely different but uh the letters are the same
damn it but uh yeah so before we get to gridman universe i have three other movies that i checked out
and i want to talk about at least for a while so john take a cup of hot cocoa or something and
lean back while i talk in detail no uh just oh no at least the first two are gonna be very quick the
the third one i have to talk a bit longer about it because you'll see um the first one that i checked
out uh sports anime something i've been looking forward to a long time and that is hi q the dumbster
battle weird name i guess but if you've watched the show and i've talked i've reviewed the
four four four five five seasons at this point i'm not sure four or five uh at least done quick
reviews of the other ones uh don't remember uh uh in what form makes it but i've talked about all of the
seasons and when we last left our gang from carosu no they were slapped up in the middle of a big old
tournament the nationals the national tournament national volleyball tournament so and to my
surprise the next match that they were uh gonna have were against their long time technically rival um
uh from the other side of the country uh neko ma and they have like this long history it's the
cross against the cats and they gonna have to battle at the dumpsters and everything so there was a big
build up to that happening again that's up training matches before they made friends with some people
from the other team and everything like our main character show you having uh do uh having a really
good uh hitting it off really well with one of the important characters from uh from the other team
kenma and it's like oh this is gonna be the big finale of the nationals uh those two teams against it
can't be any other way well um they they fight before even hitting the quarter finals
and that is this movie and it was like what wait hold on a second
how is this not the finale of the nation what is coming after this and i'm still wondering
about that because yeah this is what this movie is is those two teams that have like basically
had this build up through the entirety of the show going
fighting before they even reached the quarter finals and it's it's cool like it's a cool match
it's good ol high q its production i g on the movie budget with everything that it that entails that
you can imagine it looks gorgeous there's some amazing plays of great animation in there uh there's
an insane p o v shot at the end from i think it was kenma's perspective where you just see them do a
bunch of plays and it's just read first person the entire time and you just wonder how the
who and is so well animated and just you're looking at that in or up to that moment it was just the
usual high q stuff and it looked great in everything but a lot of that movie is also dialogue
and everything in flashbacks and like whoa okay but that shot was just so fucking good that it
basically just if elevates the entire movie which is cool actually yeah which at that point was
just you know you're stylish again shown movie but basically the whole movie slash game is about
show you're getting kenma to the point of for the first time in his life saying that he has fun
playing the game because kenma is good at the game technically in terms of tactics and everything
like he's a good playmaker he knows where his teammates need to be he knows how to get them uh get
them winning in clutch situations and everything he's not really that much into sports in
general he's more of a game guy like everything he does is kind of like references to dragon quest and
stuff like that and RPGs in general and you know and he's like I think referring to subpar players as
slime so something like so you know or that was one of from another anime maybe I'm mixing things up
but he's the game guy so the the video game guy and he's just started playing volleyball because his
best friend who's also on his team is really interval so he's just got strong alone and he's never
being super or it has not admitted to super being into that he just just I'll play it because I guess
I'm good at it but also I'm not a super fit person and run out of steam quickly but I'm a smart guy I
know where to put the players and I know where to put myself and where to delegate I know where to
direct the others so I'm I'm important player but you know there was never really the passion in there
that some of the other characters had and show you was like I'm gonna make him admit that he loves
volleyball and that is basically this entire movie and of course that's what happens at the end
of the game when he gets in there and it's that is the emotional high point of this and it's more
important than Karusano actually winning the game which they do but like it's not the super
all-lost minutes usual you know sports anime stuff where it's like oh and now they're gonna hit
the points and everything it's a really it's a really like standard play that decides it and it's just
just a can't just having sweaty hands and then he drops the ball and that's it and it's just
basically it could happen to anyone and it's not like the super ingenious play by Karusano or something
that outmaneuver similar everything no it's just a prolonged play and because they're playing a long
time he is sweaty and he just the ball slips off his hand and then they have lost and it's like it's
this real anti-climax to that match technically but the important part happens before that and that
is when he admits that he actually loves playing this game he loves playing it with his friends he
loves playing against good opponents like like Karusano you know and like friends on the other side
like rivals like show you so that's the emotional high point and climax of that actual match and then
Karusano winning is just you know the thing that needs to happen really which might disappoint some
people depending considering some of the matches in high q are just so energetic and exciting and
everything and that I don't necessarily feel like that is this match in this movie and considering
the weight was hyped up and everything was built up to it that might feel like a bit of a letdown
to some people it didn't really feel for me I was surprised that that's what they went with and
that they were completely focused on the character stuff but that also works in regards to what
high q was doing until now so I liked it I liked it a lot I'm super surprised this wasn't a finale though
and so I'm pretty sure I know who they're gonna play against because there's this one team
that's gonna probably wait for them in the quarter finals that has this kind of like
anti show show you like this uh this with the same uh body attributes and everything he can jump
super high he can do super quick plays and everything he just has white hair so it's white show you
something like that and it's probably gonna square off but the weird thing is these will be the quarter
finals and as far as I know only two movies have been announced so far this one and the next one
so are we getting more are they gonna kicked out of the nationals in the quarter finals which is
my current assumption which would be always time for them to announce more yeah sure but it's like
the manga is over and I don't know how much more story they had to cover so this could be like a
well we tried but we're not there yet in terms of capability so I also would be surprised if
that's how they ended like they're probably gonna lose against the better show you in the in the
in the next match that could be the case uh bit of a spoiler I guess like with announcing only the
two movies and but also like you said maybe they'll announce more we'll see but yeah really
interesting that would be like a gun bar a kicker situation a soccer anime I watched faithfully
multiple times through from beginning to end back in the day because it was airing on TV over here
and everyone liked it not captain subaza but the other one and they in at least in the tv series version
they lost the finale in the tournament that we're playing at the end like they lost the finale
against their arch rivals and that was really for me watching that back in the day that was like
what our heroes don't win at the end what the fuck or how many times did ash lose in the Pokemon
league yes but that was before ash so I I didn't know about his jump ass but so but uh yeah so uh
that that was really surprising to me so would be interesting to see something like that
again and see how the team handles that and everything uh and yeah uh let's see and also the kicker is one
in a movie version that changed the ending of that game which I haven't seen yet I should I should
try to to I mean I think I already found it somewhere but I haven't watched it yet so it would be
very interesting uh german subs sure um but anyway that cool movie liked it a lot um interested to see
how the next one pens out and if that will be the end of the series or if we'll get more uh if
there was more stuff left from the manga or if that is where the nationals and the story and
but yeah I'm definitely gonna watch that whenever that will end up I watched an anime movie at the movie
theater it just came out and that is the lord of the rings war of the rohiran which technically is a
it's a us produced movie uh for all intents and purposes but it has a lot of japanese staff
uh among them the uh the director uh Kenji kamiyama who they really put front and center in the
advertit like in in the trailers from legendary director Kenji uh Kenji kamiyama it's like wait who is
Kenji kamiyama again well he directed a lot of ghost in the shell sent a lot of complex stuff he
directed um uh he he created the blood series uh and directed that and um he uh also directed the new
ultraman uh Netflix shows I think so yeah he's done a lot of a a lot of stuff but yeah he's the director
of this and this is just a full on anime this is now like the character designs the way it looks the
way it animates this is just a lot of the rings anime hey and i was surprised but i was actually
especially surprised putting them them putting that in this in the theater and an i-max for an entire
week it's like oh okay never seen an anime i don't i-max before and then we're gonna do that
so um yeah and the story is basically a prequel um it's set before the events of the ring war in
the original three lot of the rings movies but it it is definitely in that universe it's not something
that plays uh it's an elsewhere story or something like that and the focus of this are
the roherim so the people from the the writers of rohan right um and uh the
it's focuses on this uh this daughter of one of the more i guess well-known characters
Helm Hammerhand you know what what who was Helm's deep-named after later on which is the big uh
setpiece for the second lot of the rings movie um and this is partially his story but also more so
the story of his daughter um who is kind of like this wants to be a shield maiden which is not really
a thing anymore uh at this point and there was like yeah we should get rid of that old custom and who
has seen she's amazing so a woman who doesn't do just you know the classic womanly princess things but
also fights on horseback and everything else and she is kind of that she is pretty wild and she wants
to be more than just married off to some prince of gondor and uh yeah and then some shit happens
like her dad Helm Hammerhand lives up to his name and accidentally which is the single punch killed
kills um lord from from a different part of his kingdom and uh that causes that lord's son to rebel
and they have a there's a big old war and shit hits the fan and everything and that's basically the
entire movie um with different changing setpieces and everything and uh Helm Helm Hammerhand's daughter
Hera being mixed up in that because she's also had um kind of a childhood not necessarily romans but
definitely friend thing going on with the son of the lord who got killed and everything so that
complicates it and or would complicate it if he was actually a sympathetic character but he's
an absolute asshole like from beginning to end like he's the worst so it's not like they're making you
trying to sympathize with sympathize with his side too it's like he's he's just completely controlling
asshole and like the smallest man in terms of oh god you you were better at me than fighting and I
hated that and how dare you live your own life and everything and how dare you make me back to marry
you and whatever so he's he's real inseal prince I guess but goddamn uh he uh yeah he's a shitty guy
and uh the movie is just him uh of throwing a lot an army against uh you know um Hera and her father
and everything and then having a big old showdown at Helm's Deep uh which is not called that at the
beginning I don't know what it was called in english uh was it called orn castle hornbroke there it
was called horn book in germin I had to watch it in a germin dub because there was no um
original version show uh version showing an i-mix so uh so germin dub was solid because it was a
big movie production so of course they got some good uh voice uh voice actors there
but uh would also like to see it in english again it's a very pretty movie overall it is
handicapped a bit by an overreliance on unnecessary rotoscoping uh and a few bits of shoddy CG
there is you know I don't mind rotoscoping onto the characters I think that can look really cool
especially in 2d fight sequence the problem is they don't use it mostly for that for some reason
or only for that but also in the dialogue scenes and that is becomes somewhat distracting at moments
where the characters just are over animated like they just weirdly move around and move their shoulders
and turn in every direction while they talk and everything like that which is super unnecessary
and the problem is if you have the rotoscoping on traditional 2d animation with a limited frame count
in fighting sequences you necessarily don't notice that or it can actually enhance
the kinetic energy of the fight scenes the problem is in dialogue scenes it just looks weird
it's just like these characters who shouldn't behave like 3d models trying to behave like 3d models
in a superfluid way and 2d you know not disney to d superfluid to d rotoscoped animation but you know
limited and frame anime animation that can look really good but it was not made for that kind of
behavior especially not in its dialogue scenes and so you have like this weirdly uh weird moments with
over-enement characters just going down the stairs and talking and looking trying to look way too much
like motion capture and everything which I must assume also played into that and sometimes it just
it just looks weird and it looks unnecessarily over animated it's like
ha you should have just kept that kind of she should just put up that additional work into the fight
sequences and just not have it in these dialogue scenes which is it just too much in the distracts
what actually is being said and everything because the characters just the character details can't
match what the animation is trying to do with the rotoscoping so that was a bit of a down
down that wouldn't even necessarily say it's a down it's just a distraction right it doesn't
ruin the movie or everything anything but it's it's a it's a choice it's a choice where I wasn't sure
why they made it where it's like why did you do that like all the scenes where you don't do that
in terms of dialogue and everything look fine but when you just try to go just full ham with
the rotoscoping and the dialogue it just looks weird because the animation just can't match your speed
there and it's it's just a weird choice it's just like them trying hey it's a movie and it's it's
gonna be on the big screens and internationally it's a lot of the rings thing it's a big franchise
so we have to pull our all into that and we're just gonna throw all of our animation talent at even
the smallest scene and it just doesn't doesn't work for that kind of animation style in my opinion
so and then we have some a bit of shoddy cg on some of the stuff there like the backgrounds are fine
like you immediately see it cg like the mountains when the first moment with like this eel is flying
through the landscape of rohen and you see like the mountains surrounding it and everything it looks
very much like cg but very good cg very high-res very detailed and everything that it would have
been fine if they like kept it to that but they also put it sometimes on some of the structure like
a siege tower that they're building right and then it crashes into into into ham's deep and
it just looks like it doesn't belong to the drawn stuff like it clashes with the hand drawn stuff
and the same for a scene where where an all of the fun is just running into a barricade and the
barricade's cg and splinter is in a really weird way like someone turned off the havoc engine to
maximum or something like that it just looks really fucking weird and these are the moments where like
I give what you were trying to do but it doesn't work so maybe you should have done it a bit
differently but again it doesn't really doesn't really take down the movie so much where it's like
it doesn't ruin the experience what is more problematic is that the story loses a lot of its momentum
in the second half I feel like once they get to ham's deep it just not comes to a grinding halt but
it slows down severely and never really picks up from that again in terms of storytelling speed
and interesting things happening and something there's still a big old battle at the end and there's
some cool fight scenes and everything but it's like it feels like this it's treading a bit of water
from that moment on so those were my problems with it I enjoyed it though overall I wouldn't mind
to see more lot of the rings anime but maybe maybe makes a few different decisions the next time
you do that if if we'll ever get that because I think it's not super successful at the box office
and it's got some big contenders coming up which it won't match like Sonic 3 and Mufasa so good luck
with that like I mean I went at a time at a time that the day was showing it at the time where you
can't expect anyone to show up for it anywhere it was like 2 p.m. in the afternoon on weekdays it's like
yeah this is not a movie necessarily meant for kids because it's also kind of violent in certain parts
and you know it's a lot of the rings stuff so maybe I don't know if you want to take your young kids
who are maybe not in school right now take to this but like I had the big ol iMac's room
that were like with me six other people so her and it was this first week I think so at least
over here it's probably not getting that much audience so and it sounds it's the same for
the us box office so let's see let's see how much money it makes maybe it will not discourage them
to do more in that vein I wouldn't mind it I would like to see more from this universe in anime form
but also maybe this was a one and done there we'll see I'm sure all of the Lord of the Reans
nerds out there will do their best to go see it yeah yeah I mean you say that I was talking to a
colleague of mine and she was like well I'm probably not gonna see it in the theater I'm gonna wait
until it's on the release I'm like oh well okay everyone yeah we'll see I don't know maybe I'll
I feel like I've seen the trailer a lot especially in front of big movies which surprised me
but I don't know how good the advertising or how prominent the advertising is outside of that
so I don't even know how many people are aware that there's a new lot of the ring
a lot of the rings movies in theaters true so we'll see we'll see how it pans out but again
solid movie wasn't attaining like I said slowed down a bit by the end but in a bit of
weird creative choices there but overall it was competently made it was fun uh there was a lot
of cool action stuff in there and it was was despite some of the weird choices it was very pretty
like really really big budget anime pretty so yes the last one before we get to our big
shared review is one elast
one elast
which is so first of all I'm a bit late on this since it came out at the end of 2022 in Japan but hey
better late than ever and also it's been only available on home media since summer this year so I
guess I'm not that late to the party and this movie adapts the final match from the slam dunk
basketball manga which hadn't been adapted until now not even in the original tv series which I
loved um I love the original slam dunk tv anime but it ended before it was able to adapt all of the
manga there were also four other movies of that aside from the tv show in the 90s but those were all
set during the series or prequels and not after it if I remember correctly so as far as I know this is
the first attempt of adapting the finale of that manga which you know given that the title is a bit
of a misnomer I think because it's technically the last slam dunk yeah I was gonna say
I was quite sure about why why the creator picked that but it doesn't matter really
this is also pretty much a dream come true project first of all this happening after such a long time
of the original series how one was the original series let me look this up quickly uh 1993
oh wow yes so I don't know when it wrap up probably 1994 or five but I think it went for a rent
for 60 or 80 episodes and now 2024 or 2022 I guess we get a big budget movie wrap up for this
and not only that but it was directed and written by the original creator of the manga
taki koinui well now yes which feels like an incredibly rarity jaan dude did we ever have that
where the original manga creator was also the director of the adaption I don't know like actually
with the four first not only like like cooperating or or the assistant director or something like that
but actually first and for writer and director of that thing I don't remember anything of but
yeah I don't remember anything like that ever happening ever but that guy apparently
such a big deal I don't know if he's directed anything else outside of this I didn't look it up I should have
but um
holy shit like if this is your first direction credit you know what the fuck like this is so good
this is one of the best anime movie things I've ever seen probably anime things in general like this
came out of nowhere and like again I should look this up it's probably not his only direction credit
it can't be like and I know it's not his only writing credit because he wrote the goddamn manga so
but maybe also the only movie he wrote and what like I know anime are not created by one person
but you need to have a person with a strong vision also when it comes to the visuals and
that was definitely there don't know it was only for him or if he was said now this this probably
should look like this and this look like this and everything I was handled by the animation directors
and whatever but holy fucking shit so most of the match footage in this is CG which had me worried
before going into it because it's like oh yeah it's gonna look wonky and I don't know I um
you know how I'm with CG in anime but holy fucking shit does this movie look downright
incredible pretty much every step of the way it's fluid it's sharp it's impeccably directed every
important scene looks as good as it can and then some and it uses like this special shading that really
makes it look like the original manga come to life it's fantastic like there's this moment after the
short introductionary scenes that we have with the main character where the actual match starts
because you know just like the high-cube movie this is basically just this one match and you have
like these our main characters basically walking onto the court but starting us out as like this rough
drafts like with a pencil and then slowly being built up to being full character models and they
do that for every of the characters while the soundtrack is playing in the background and it's like
this this somewhat rock march where they walk onto the court and it looks fucking amazing and you
see one of one of the none of these characters being realized and put into color and then the the
opposing team and then it's they're heading off against each other and it's like this versus screen
and street fighter and I'm like what the what is happening and why am I crying
it's fucking amazing so the animation production was handled by Toei and Dandelion Studio the letter
wasn't really on my radar before but good lord is it now and they handled the CG in a lot of movies
and TV shows high-cube the berserk movies looper part four musical tense I don't know if they have
improved so much since the berserk movies because that was a mixed bag especially came came to the
mass scenes with a lot of soldiers they look really stiff and wonky but also that was
studio for sea also handling this so I don't know who did what there again I don't know if they've
improved so much or if it's the fantastic direction making their stuff shine or if it's Toei handling
a lot of that as well but in a lot of moments this our shines orange likes what what studio orange has
given to us and they that is our both our opinion I think they're the top-notch anime studio when
it comes to CG anime they're getting better and better like we look both looking for it B-star season
the final season is gonna hit any minute at least the first part and we're looking forward to that
tri-gun a stampede looked amazing so they are definitely the top-notch studio and granted they're
going for a bit of a different style here and we haven't seen orange operate on a movie budget yet
but what Dandelion is doing here is definitely the new benchmark next to Eupho table I guess because
so they also employ a lot of CG although Eupho table uses CG more sparingly when it comes to animating
actual characters which is always the most tricky thing in my opinion to make look fluid and not
stiff but whoever from Dandelion or Toei handled the character animation in this
who knows well done definitely one of the examples now that rank for me at the top when it comes
to showing that anime can do CG well if the proper budget and creative vision is available
the soundtrack is also ridiculously good done by Satoshi Sakabe who also did the music for the
Ghibli series Ronja the robber's daughter and the movie from Up on Poppy Hill but the presentation
is not even the best thing the movie has to offer no that is its story and characters
like I said just like the high q movie I just talked about this one also tells its story during
the course of basically just a single match but in contrast to the high q movie this one also works
as a standalone film all you really need to know is that these are the finals of the national high
school basketball tournament you get introduced to the most important characters during the match with
a lot of flashbacks but by far the best decision the creators of this movie have made is shifting
the perspective away from the original main character of the story Sakuragi Hanamichi Sakuragi
and centering it mostly instead on Ryohta Miyagi who joins the manga and TV series in its second half
why was this a good decision well while I'll absolutely love Hanamichi and his goofball antics
his story is mostly getting into basketball because he crushes on the girl
there's more to it than that he was a little in quint before and didn't really belong he has like
his bodies his goon squad that he hangs around with and he makes trouble all the time and he's a
dumbass but then he gets into basketball because of this girl he crushes on and he generally learns
to care about the game and some members of his team to an extent but all of that is still kind of
superficial and that might be a bit lacking in substance to some especially if it's like they're
only the movie that they have and if they made Hanamichi the main focus of that so instead they make
Ryohta the main character of this a guy who lost both his dad and brother in quick succession when he
was a young boy a brother who taught him to play basketball and who he downright idolized
and this final match is against the team his brother wanted to eventually play against that beat
and never got to do that because he died so immediately you have this incredibly strong emotional
hook they basically turned this match into that boy's life story stand alone story and it works so
incredibly well you have the complicated relationship to his brother and his mom his troubled youth
how basketball plays into all of that it grabs you it hooks you and it never lets go it's an excellent
sports drama and movie period loved every goddamn second of it and was downright trembling in the
final moment of the match it was it's so good and it just it just escalates and escalates and escalates
and escalates when it comes to the match moments actually and it gives every character not all of
them but a lot of the characters like each their cool moments to shine and also a bit of background
story if you've seen the division you know them and you know what to do with them but also if you
haven't that's why I mean what I mean when I said works as a standalone movie you get enough
character work in this to really connect to pretty much connect to every character at least on
the team that you're supposed to root for not so much for the other team but you learn so much
about them and everyone has like a great moment in the match where they can shine and they we can
turn around this match and the match will just just looks incredible it's just such good animation
such good CG and we have traditional animation as well mostly in the dialogue scenes outside of
the match and everything but the CG in the match itself and how fluid it is and how the place
are visualized and how much the camera swoo like swarves around the characters and how quick
everything moves it just looks so fucking good and yeah I really recommend everyone to watch this
sure you get more out of it if you already familiar with the story and characters because naturally
some of them like Akagi Rukawa and Kogure for example don't get as much screen time as they deserve
and from the enemy team you really get only a bit of background on one of the guys but it really
doesn't matter because this story is so expedited craft and so incredibly well presented that
this is really all you need and it maybe will give some people the incentive to check out the
original show or manga so that's great and like I said it works so well that they changed the focus
character for the audience to the ostensible main character to one of the side characters and
made him the main character of this particular movie it just it works so much better than they if
they would have chosen Hanami Shii as much as I love that guy so fantastic idea fantastic movie I
loved it I would definitely watch it again and again probably and I hope everyone out there who
like sports anime or just anime or movies in general we give this a look because hot damn if not you
y'all are missing out this is absolutely once in a lifetime movie in my opinion I was just blown away
I wish I could have seen it on the big screen I don't know if it had a run over here maybe and I
I won't look that up because I will just be very angry at myself that I skipped on that because
I was like oh cg so it's probably not good that will show me goddamn so yeah I'm super happy that
this after all these years after like 30 years only shit I got a finish to to this story and what
a finish it was what a goddamn finish it was but yeah it's not the only probable finish we got in
movie form this time which will bring us to our last movie review and the one that both of us
watched so John why don't you take it away I've talked enough I mean I will talk again obviously but
why don't you take it away and tell us what was was happening in the grid man universe a lot apparently
so this basically takes place a year after the end of ssss grid man and yuta is trying to work up the
courage to confess to rica and then kaiju attack as they do and it's like we're thrown kind of
right straight into it and grid man appears before a yuta again he's like so basically the balance
between worlds is starting to fall apart and then everyone else starts appearing from the series
and from dynazine on as well and it's like I said it kind of happens all at once rated the star and it's
it's a lot yeah it's a lot and I feel like trying to summarize this movie is tough but they talk about
this might be part of a phenomenon called the big crunch which I guess is opposed to the big bang
I don't know how they phrase it yeah I don't know if that is an actual term that exists
maybe in a hundred billion years it will as you know astrophysics something something the
universe is constantly expanding you can argue about how it's expanding because I was actually
listening to a talk about that last week the week before some people think it's a linear some
people think it's exponential that's a whole nother discussion but yeah so this kaiju appears
and dynarex and suddenly gauma and everyone from me I still won't be able to get over the name nian
genesis junior high school this is never not to this day this is definitely one of the movies I mean
as outside of that that was already in the grittman show then being that part of the grittman
line is being called that but this is definitely one of those movies where it's like oh yeah this is ex
kaiju screw like in terms of where it goes and how weird it gets in parts and how meta it gets
like this is a very meta movie like they're one of the interesting and I guess very important
side bits that might not seem like it but it definitely is is that they're trying to put on the play
in this in this movie of the events of what happened in grittman and you to his kind of
had his memory wipe from the end of grittman and rika and ujumi rika and ujumi want to
tell the world their story yeah and rika intentionally or in the beginning was like real
she really wants to let the world know about arcane side of the story you know the
stanzel antagonist of the first series but who actually was the main character in this guy's
considering her arc was the most important one and you know it's really funny how the show
plays into what happens we like they okay they're setting up the they're trying to set up the play
which feels like it's gonna be a thing inside the thing and then the script needs to be changed
because and everyone is too we is happy with how it's set up like that it is too that never it's too
complicated the thing that is really important to rika no one gets and it's like no let's just
throw more characters in there like once the dynasena characters arrives they just throw out the
arcane pot and throw the new characters in there and now there's just more characters and
everyone likes it it's like hey this is more fun and i was like okay rika this is to throw in
more characters yes and make it more confusing no but it's not apparently not for the
everyone liked it because now it's more fun because it's just ridiculous but rika is like well
it feels like and yuta is saying the same i feel like it's missing the focus now like
the arcane stuff was was the heart of this why did you take it out and rika's like well nobody
liked it because it uh they didn't get it and they felt like it was unrealistic and i wonder if the
criticism arcane is character received in this script of the play is a reference to real life
criticism the writing of her character got in the show if i remember correctly a lot of people
thought at least her turn at the end was not convincing from going from bad guy to good guy
technically though i disagree with that i think i've made that evident in our review of a groupman
and her arc was my favorite from that show and she was the ostensible main character like i said
it was like a lot of this the the stuff that relates to the play in the show them changing it
last minute or several times right and throwing it out and then yuta commentican is saying like
"louder you've taken out the arcane pot it's losing the co- says lost this heart it says lost this
core yeah it was very important to me too rika says but also people didn't get it so i wanted to be the
to to get the audience come the audience out of our project happy because it's like a school plan
so maybe that's more important and all of this the entire play part of this feels like it's a
meta commentary commentary on making the gritman danazena and gritman universe stuff like
strong trigger and trigger is now has done is not a verse to doing that in general they have done
this before like i feel like uh what was it was a little bit of a academia or a lot some of their stuff
just feels like they're commenting on creating anime like with by making anime like their story is
a comment on doing that and the problems that rise from that and the hurdles and what that can
entail and everything and this again feels deadly like a commentary on that as well it's a whole bit
yeah and i'm not criticizing that i think that is super fun it was a federal just like really evident
at certain moments was like okay i guess i know what you're doing with that here and i'm going to
talk about the point where they arrive at in biopinial later on which is my interpretation of that but
considering what came before it it was really fun but yeah things get really weird like once the
danazena crew appears right because you know we get the explanation with the big crunch and everything
but that really is and what else happens you just starts to see ghosts right yeah and we have this
we have this very like first of all the movie is really good at conveying this feeling of cozy
melancholy just like the previous shows like a weekend and in the summer and you know it's
something happening at school and everything seems to be okay but also maybe not and then things
things get more unsettling there's this weird moment where they talk about the play and suddenly
Alexis Kerrb is with them in the fucking restaurant or coffee shop or wherever they have made their
headquarters and the only ones like being seeming to be faced by this is youcha oh i'm just
reekous father wearing a costume but it's like yeah it's it's it's really interesting like the movie
gives you a small hint that something isn't quite right with all of this like everything that is
happening a lot of this is too convenient and that fits neatly with the matter talk about the
script because it seems the writers uses to justify some of the more over plot conveniences i guess
contrivances but yeah we have the Alexis Kerrb stuff him suddenly being there but also maybe he
isn't and you just imagining the whole thing you just saying wait i haven't felt pain since i got
hit by that volleyball in the head so that is super weird why is that the case why can only i see ghosts
what is going on but everything they are trying to to get through the bottom of this a new kaiju
we have kaiju interrupt us new kaiju appears on the scene to have to fight it and the battles are cool
right like what do we have we have the big fight in the beginning and then later a team up of
grid night and danazan and grid man i guess they're they're stunning you know the battles are mostly
cg of course we have some for the key scenes we have some digitally animated stuff as well
even though like the fully upgraded versions of grid man and grid night don't really lend
themselves super well for prolonged battle choreography in my opinion yeah they kind of get a little
busy with that yeah the designs are so goddamn detailed and bulky you sometimes get a bit of a
bay former syndrome as in you don't know what part of their body you're actually looking at
that the head is that the leg is that the ass like what what did what did the kaiju just get hit
with did it get asked or did it get faced faced palms i don't i don't know whatever but it's fun
like i feel like we we get we get all of what what we wanted in out of the battles initial to battles
in terms of hey seeing all seeing grid man again seeing danazan again seeing different combinations
all the good stuff that we had in the tv show would you agree yeah yeah for the most part yes i mean
again it's weird it's a weird atmosphere of you like wait what is actually going on here like this
the entire first half of the movie is like okay everyone appears it's a lot like you said
and you're wondering like wait this all feels like it's falling into place way too neatly and then
not anything is really happening outside of them fighting kaiju is like they're not getting to
the bottom of it there's like oh it's the big crunch all the universes start to overlap
but there's no any real reason given for it and it's like okay why is this happening and at some point
it feels like the characters don't really care they're just more interested in being in this world
and like hanging out like hey we're gonna eat here at the shop and also hey we're gonna the
danazan on cruis gonna help the help the characters from from grid man putting up their players like
wait don't we have more pressing matters to attend to here apparently not yeah so at that point
it's like okay something else is going on something weird and what is what is all this nonsense
where is this coming from and apparently grid man himself cost off all of this nonsense is what
we find out because since he was originally a being of pure energy without form his interactions
with humanity is what gave him shape and he has been evolving since then and apparently John
correct me if I misunderstood in your opinion he is now able to create universes and kind of became
the everything like that we see the danazan universe the grid man universe everything is part of
him now is what he created like he's kind of become the god of this like he's unconsciously created
and become the universe all at the same time and it was like at that point in the movie I was like
sure dude alright it doesn't necessarily make sense like at all but okay let's just roll with it
I gotta say a lot of this movie didn't make sense to me man yes yes it's like it's asking a few
lot but also at the same time and stating dude honestly it doesn't matter just roll with it just have
fun which is again whether meta stuff with the script comes in at my opinion it's like hey we're just
here maybe to have fun and also we're just gonna do a thing where we comment on our own work by doing
ridiculous stuff in the anime but we're trying to give at the same time give you all the friends
of us moments that you wanted in regards to having these these two set of characters from the two
shows come together and do some wild shit on screen and they do that just it gets even crazier
but yeah just like I said just like I mean we already kind of had this kind of thing in a small compact
version in grid man in the original in in SSS grid man so it doesn't really come out of nowhere
because that's basically what Akane did right she got transported to the digital world by Alexis
because she was like a loner who couldn't connect didn't make any friends and was just was a need
or something like that a hiki kumori and was just was just a shot in and he offered her the chance
to build her own world like GTA style I guess and do anything in data she wanted if someone
wasn't to her liking or went against her wishes she just killed them in her world and remade the world
let everyone forget that something happened and basically started over that was the story of
the original show that was her role as an antagonist just basically treating these digital beings
that she herself created with the help of Alexis to to make a world that suited her needs
of being you know an introvert shot in that couldn't easily connect to people and then our characters
our main characters ostensibly which are really were just the side cares like Rika actually forming a
connection with her that made her regret what she has been doing in the digital world and that was
then at some point rebelling against Alexis and going against him who was his motivation was
just feeding on Akane's negative emotions that is where he drew his power from so technically
this is just an escalation of that great man was for being of pure energy and through his
interactions with humanity got so powerful that he was able to do what Akane did on a grand scale
just basically doing everything inside this digital universe that he wanted to and I think
this we get an explanation for why he was doing it or why he was susceptible of an outside forest
making him do that because that's the secondary real it's not actually him who did that willingly
it's like this accumulation of Kaiju that turned to one big Kaiju consciousness that resulted
from bad energy like bad feelings of people so it's basically all their hate and negative feelings
of people that were put into that were formed into a Kaiju body and that Kaiju was sentient enough
to be like to feed on on grid man who felt guilt and regret over robbing Yucha of his memories
by fusing with him that is basically the crux the whole trigger point of this ha ha trigger point
of this where it's like hey Yucha lost his memory because of me he lost all the experiences
with his friend and everything because he decided to fight together with me to help destroy Alexis
and everything were imprisoned him and that is technically my fault that's how grid man feels and because
he felt guilty about that and regret over that he was susceptible to the manipulation by that
that Kaiju that bad energy Kaiju that kind of influenced him to remake the world over and
again and bring all these people together so Yucha could maybe remember and would have a good time
and everything he wanted basically wanted to give him his life back in a way in a weird way
and of course you know at some point he wasn't able to control anything really anymore because
he was just completely manipulated by the Kaiju the person who tries to get all of this under
control again is grid night and he eventually steps out of the shadow or manages to break through
the barrier that were set up by grid man and manages to get through to Yucha and through Yogomi
the other character from the Denizen on universe and then together they try to get rid of who is
controlling grid man and yeah that's the big ol finale of this what I found really cool was like
we get like life action arcane like in this cool mix media thing we see first see her eye looking
into the universe talking to Yuta this is really weird but also really cool and we see her outside
in the real world I assume that's the actual voice actress right of arcane from the first
I think it's a different person oh okay interesting I mean it could have been either way but I'm not sure
and she's standing there in this in the trash heap like would I get her version of that
junk computer whatever and is using her power to free Alexis and fuse with him and
distracting or fighting the Kaiju long enough so that they can get grid man back and like
basically tear him from from the control of the Kaiju and that's super cool the moment where she
like the live action version transforms into her anime version and then fuses with Alexis that's
just like some of the sort of the things that you really never see aside from Kusso anime I guess like
pop team epic and stuff like that where we have life action sequels and stuff like that but I was just
really neat and I thought there was really cool because you know we have the scene her that's how the
the original the SS as a as grid man show ended her like waking up and reaching for the sky which
matches the ED of that show and everything which made it come for the circle body and and now we
actually see her in a full full real life human form and everything an interaction with these
with these animated digital characters and it's super weird but also super cool it's like
it's just something you that I hadn't seen before and I liked it and we also get some cool vocal
tracks in the movie you know the we get renditions of the opi's from both shows and the movie theme in
the fights when everything at the ending like the animation goes super crazy overboard in the finale we
bless this super cool traditionally animated fight scenes that just go full trigger in every aspect
eh it's just so fun I think the thing that made me laugh the most was uh and of Cylis the second
transforming into just a giant lady that basically suits up with a machine cosplay version of her
Kaiju form and it was like wow this looks super weird what are you doing it's so goofy and out of
place uh and the show knows it and I love it and that was fun she you know she basically looks like
she's putting up a mecha version of the costume that uh utsumu where utsumu wears in the play uh
that they put up so again we have the meta narrative connection there and it's it's fun the show's
just the the movie is just having fun it's having fun with the franchise it's having fun with the
with the shows that they did before and all the characters like hey maybe don't take this all too
seriously it's just a big old nonsense fest but also we put a bit of a few story beats in it in
there that is super fun uh that are super fun like I mean we get some nice wrap ups to uh slightly
loose endings from the shows before I mean we already learned that yoga me and what is what is
this now girlfriend's name you may have believe me right that they went steady this is also a big
story that that Utah wants to go steady with Rika but doesn't is afraid to ask her or constantly
misses this moment in the most uh ridiculous ways uh and they are the counter points like well
we're boyfriend and girlfriend now why are you not and he's like well I'm trying guys
and I mean you know we get that um I mean there is that which is you know nice in the end and then there
was the scene between Yomogi and you may where he's like oh can I I think you to come over and have
crab with the family it's like I forget XA out there's like but you know I'm not part of your
family no no no no no no no no I think she says uh if you want to come over and have crab and she's
like isn't that for your family and he's like yeah so yes you're part of my family yeah yeah
yeah yeah yeah it's like oh completely rough as yes which is the first for her in this movie because
she's like oh that caught me off guard because she's kind of like cool and collected usually
so that was really nice yeah true I love that moment as well I thought there was really nice anyway
that is even the after credit weird after credit sticker we get I don't know if you watch to the
very end there what that after I was expecting something but she's like oh how's the crab that's
all right and that's it it's exactly it's technically exactly the fucking after credit scene from
the first Avengers movie where they all sit around in the in the showroom a place and eat it's exactly
the same thing and I laughed it was so good I was yes all right I forgot about that from that movie yeah
yeah it's funny it's super fun it didn't see that coming but yeah fun scene I thought they seen where
where night thinks Akane for creating him and she lovingly ruffling his hair after all the shit she
threw his way in the first series was really cute and rewarding same goes for a gamma slash Rex
and you're going to be finally getting to have a proper goodbye which they didn't get in dinosaur
because gamma was just transported back to the past I guess or I don't know reborn and then
taken to to joining the new in Genesis high school students has their new member in everything
but they finally get to have a proper goodbye and everything and that was really nice and you
get to keep his memories this time and yeah that is moment with princess he man yeah it was really nice
yeah the gamma so deserved this yes that was so really nice and real life Akane finally apparently
made some friends which we will see her joining we see her joining her in that cleanup that they
do on the riverside or whatever when they clean the trash and she has some some girls joining her
and they seem to be friendly and that apparently was I mean that was one of the big things the character
motivations in the first series that she didn't have that and wanted that so it's nice seeing her
getting that in real life as well so that was really nice and you to andrika finally go steady of course
by the end there really nice cute scene between the two of them being awkward together and yeah good
fiends all around man it's it's a super weird movie I you know it's high I think still I my opinions
are highly recommended spectacle but definitely watch both shows SSS as good man and done as
them before you see this otherwise it will be completely lost it will none of this will make sense
to you absolutely nothing it barely made any sense to the two people on this podcast to watch both
shows and like the and then we watch this like what is going on what hmm all right I think I got what
they were doing with this body and I wouldn't be surprised if the bad guy of this movie is a commentary
on fans and or rights holders being a bit too possessive in regards to the creative direction of this
franchise and this movie just being a giant fuck you we are the storytellers we do whatever the
hell we want message so what was the villain's name I don't know it doesn't matter doesn't matter
and well I just find it interesting that they never give him a name in the movie he had to look it
up after the fact be like what was he called is apparently it's mad origin okay that's fun
which oh yeah all right like I didn't have a problem with the meta commentary in this movie but
boy the way things kind of moved along just not gonna lie do I feel like this movie was maybe about
30 minutes longer than it needed to be yeah that's also true like I kept looking at the clock like how
much time is that Jesus Christ or so another it is a lot more beyond with a logical endpoint should have
been yeah it's true which really honestly frustrated me I get that but the thing is yes there was
been a lot of plates and I feel like for a movie that goes that long they would have needed a stronger
character through line aside from hey Utah and Rika want to become steady and also they're putting
on a play and you know which is basically that is the emotional core of this and by the end I guess
also hey every phone finally got to have their happy end which is also which they also bring up in
the in the talk about the play right we're one of Rika's classmates say like oh it's it's nicer
with all these characters everyone gets a happy end that's that's nice and it's like okay all right yes
we got it we got it but you know I that's fine and but you're right it's like you could have cut some
stuff from that I guess they felt like hey since we're putting already so many characters in there
we want to have some of the moments go a bit longer and you know we have already so many battles in
there and everything I guess it's just having two complete roses of characters from two full length
TV series in one movie and then having this one weird ass story where you also trying to say something
about the creation of these two movies and their after effects and everything and trying to give
everyone a proper wrap up everything it's just not possible so they went with like hey we're just
gonna throw shit at the wall mode and uh we're like yeah some of this works some of it doesn't but
doesn't it doesn't matter because we're having fun and eventually this is what it what matters to most
I can subscribe to that I guess in a way but also see your part where it's like this
Disney this like the bit of focus and also it just it needed to run shorter with what it was
giving us in terms of substance because it's basically just a battle royale with a lot of
character funny fun cute character bits in between but not a real story like it's just it's just
fighting it's cute character bits and then it's the meta commentary but the actual story and plot
are almost nonexistent in this movie it's just like although the universe is our overblapping
oh it's gripman who's doing that oh no it's the kaiju doing that okay we're beating the kaiju that's
it there's nothing real there I mean there's some twists and turns I guess but not really they don't
they don't feel as much because it's not like the show is making it this giant mystery the entire time
it's just like immediately saying no something isn't really right here and something is
with these characters but it's also so focused on the little character moments and these characters
from these two series interacting just having a fun time like it's a school play itself where it's
not really about the plot and everything but it's about the characters having fun with each other
and you as the viewer having fun seeing these characters interact with each other because that's
what you want from a crossover that works that works to a certain extent but also if you're looking
for an actual plot if you're looking for an actual story with with arcs of characters and acts you
don't get this here like you say this is a not it no absolutely not it's still a fun time it's a
big olspectacle it's good action it's some character moments it's some nice wrap-ups for stories
that were started in the first two series and those work but those only work because we had the
series before this movie this is because of the stellar character work in ss as as gripman this is
because of the not as stellar but very good competent character work in ss ss than a xenon
and this movie is basically just okay we we're showing you a bunch of ridiculous shit and then we
gonna have an apologue for all of these characters that we also could have put at the end technically
off those two series but we didn't so everything before that in this movie is just like goofball shit
so if that is fine with it it was fine with for me like it was just like okay I guess I know what you're
doing with this and I don't mind that this doesn't really have a story but I also can see like you
John like people getting kind of frustrated with parts of it and we like why is this why is this
not really going anywhere why is this going so fucking long so yeah I didn't mind it but I also wanted
a little bit just a little bit more of a con a cuz you know they yeah she was an important
character in ss ss grid man and Rika is harping on she was again a big part of the story I wanted to
be in this story and it's like yes yes okay and then she comes in she does her thing somewhat briefly
and then she's sort of just gone and it's like I mean yeah she did what she needed to but it's like
oh that really that's oh okay that's that's I guess again I wonder how much of that was
some form of outside meddling like maybe creative differences of people may maybe saying like oh I
didn't get the akana stuff and I didn't like a character that much in the original show and maybe
the original intention for the main writer or whoever was like no we're gonna bring a kind of
back and we're gonna make this you know the movie all about her and stuff like that and her
her play an important part and then someone else to maybe wasn't in a higher position or whatever
said no we don't want that we just want fun crossover with all the characters please put the focus
on that because that's more fun and that's what the audience wants uh ostensibly and that you know
meddled with the original vision and then because they couldn't really go against it the other
creator forces was like okay we got to do that but we're also commenting in the movie on that pissing
us off because we can't have what we actually wanted which is also what you wanted done maybe
uh more the focus on the akana stuff so that could very very be the case there are a lot of strong
there are a lot of points that strongly indicate that that is the case in in the in regards to what
they're doing with the play and everything and the meta narrative so I wouldn't be surprised I've
read up on any of this if there were actually production troubles or if there were conflicts of interest
in regards to the creative decisions of this movie no idea but again you can make assumptions
in regards to what is in this movie and what the movie is saying about certain creative
directions being taken or interfered with and everything so that's all I'm saying uh
but yeah if you yeah now you're probably right yeah maybe if you if you're interested
if you liked the first two series I would still have a little recommend you watching this movie
for the spectacle and the nice wrap-ups uh to the character stories alone everything else is
I don't even know what would call it gravy it's just nonsense and you don't don't pay too much
attention because you won't I mean you can pay attention at the play stuff because it's generally
interesting in regards to what it's trying to say maybe about the making of this but also don't
try to find an actual plot in this because there really isn't one but yeah that it was great
man universe uh definitely makes back but I have fun with it but since this is the season finale
for the full animation there's still one more thing we have to do
best of the season all right once more with feeling uh best of the fee best of the feeling best of
the season time john we reviewed a couple of things so where are you leaning what is what is the
stuff uh that that you want to go for with your for your pick of best of the season well you know
reviewed the tour de force that was uh shikanoko no konoko koshitan time yes
and that was a bit like kind of like right man universe but completely different also made very
little sense at point yeah um and then there are a couple other things that uh I checked out like
you know v2 per legend was cute I'm already been v2 perpilled so of course I was there to watch that
and you know silly it was fun it touched on pretty much everything except for uh except for the
thing that every v2 per fan hates and that's graduations which there have been plenty of and
not a plenty of this year in some coming next year that you know it's it's tough to talk about
but it's necessary when talking about v2 versus yes your oh she will eventually graduate but
but maybe they'll come back it's okay I won't tell you where to find them but you might be able to
so you know that was that uh there's oh shikanoko season two which I didn't want to talk about yet
because there's another season that has been announced is on the way and
boy uh stuff happened in season two like uh the found the rotting corpse of the main characters
previous life cool and that set off a lot of things where so I'll talk about that at some point but
that set off a whole new chain of events and it sort of shifted the focus sur from aqua to ruby in
yes uh but you know grandiser was it was it was a fun watch you know it again very of its time this
and that and the other thing but you know it was it was ultimately enjoyable I think
I think though I want to give it to near automata because it was just such it was different from what
I X was expecting of it and you know it was glad it wasn't a straight adaptation and I think it's
really cool that it can live alongside the game in that you get a more complete experience if you
watch and play it so and you know the production was really strong had you know all of the
same sauce as the games you know it had the the cool character designs had the incredible music so
as a big near fan myself you know it sort of hit just right and you know I feel like I can give
the big recommendation watch the show play the game if you can do one and that's fine but if you do both
then I think you are you have a lot better of an experience so I'm willing to put that as my best
for this season great and I can promise you I will do that it will just take me a bit of time still
making my way through replicant so eventually I get to automata after that I'm done with that I will
watch the anime I don't worry I still haven't finished replicant either so yeah near automata for you
as for me I like the chaotic energy of no kataan I would not say it's best off the season material
I enjoyed it like I said it's it's fun was doing a bit too much of hey that one joke after I
but it's still got still a lot of love from death I loved my open my own acupunch I think that would probably
have been until now until this episode my pick because it felt like fresh it felt like we're a bunch
of fun characters with strong character writing and a really really great finale I definitely
recommend that show to anyone who wants to see a fun setter on youtube culture terranita zero was
really interesting the best coming thing coming out of that franchise since forever and I I liked it
I'm looking forward to the next season if we get one and maybe then that will get best of the season
enjoyed at a lot but and like I said I really liked my hero academia season seven but I already
get the best of the season finally my hero academia season six that and I know it's a cheat since it's a
movie and not even from fall season really it's got to gotta be the first slant dank like that just I
know that's just the last minute thing and it's not a I didn't even give it a full length review
with credits of who made it and everything well a bit of credits here there but not not as substantial
and I didn't even talk about the original series because this just was a last minute thing for me
but I can't ignore it because it made me feel the the fields and the things and it was just to the
the the finale to a series I really like back in the day so it hit the nostalgia button for me
I think it's one of the best the best directed movies anime movies I've seen in or things I've seen
in forever because it's just it is also two hours long but boy does it not feel like it is two hours
like it just moves by so fast and it's so well structured and every one of the characters gets
enough time to shine for it to feel good and the incredible decision to move and both decision to
move the focus from the previous main character to one of the side characters and make him the main
character and this just working so perfectly in a standalone film and the presentation just
knocking it out of the park there to me and then the line and god damn what a movie like
just blew my hair back and came out of nowhere for me and I I can't I have to go with my heart even
though I feel like well if we go only with TV series I should have given to my opan and the only real
shared full movie review we did was universe but again also who cares exactly what the fuck we want
it's our show so I'm gonna pick the first slam dunk as my best of the season thing for fall
season 2024 because that's when I watched it so that's where it belongs there you go yes so
please watch that movie please watch the near automata anime and play the games
over the game and yes we'll see you next season where we don't have that many reviews probably
or two episodes I think from judging from what we watched probably I don't think we can bring three
out of that maybe maybe we'll lose something else we don't know yet there's something we might be
interested in doing but that has manifested yet so we'll see the season after that looks even more
dire at this point actually you will find out in the sneak peek because woof slim pickings I mean there's
a couple of things at least one thing for sure yes one thing for me as well yeah everything else is
kind of and then into I've been looking ahead even further than that there's like a first a
one for sure in spring one that I'm super interested in and then the other stuff is like oh maybe I'll
look this up yes so let's see there's a couple of potential things and there was always a thing
in the past was like there was a show I didn't have on my radar at all and then one of the preview
guides or whatever so hey this is about that and it's actually really good it was like oh well I guess
gotta check it out I think that was the case with Terminator 0 here so that wasn't in our sneak peek
so yeah this might happen again for now it just looks like it's gonna be slim picking but we have
at least a couple of things lined up for the next review season so there's that and maybe
something else so until then we hear at NMA Brinthrees we should happen holidays and or
happen you depending on when we when we will release this episode and yeah stay frosty and I hope we
will get we get to talk to you again in 2025 take care everybody
and that is a wrap on the 160 second episode of NMA Brinthrees all the music in this podcast is
from the double dragon neon soundtrack by the amazing jack government please go to vrrt.bankamp.com
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join us again on our next episode that's good song folks
next time on NMA Brinthrees we want to throw hands and unleash our biotic Horns
upon the magic of me while I could see your foundation on me
your true beauty, your true beauty, your true beauty
(upbeat music)