General Anime Discussion

[Rakim]

The only thing I hope is that the pillows don't do the music this time. In order to preserve the legacy of how great the first soundtrack was.

Brace yourself, take a seat:
http://www.avclub.com/article/adult-swi ... -hi-234318

Holy ballsacks! This is some seriously amazing news.
Granted, there aren't any real details on it yet, so for all we know the original staff might not even be involved (which would be a serious bummer), but holy shit all the same...
Easily one of my favorite animes ever, despite its short run. Hopefully the new ones will be able to convey the same sense of individuality in every episode that the originals had, while also packing the insane amount of content into 30 minutes that the originals did as well.
I'll try not to get too excited before seeing anything from it, but it's still pretty mindblowing that such a lesser-known (to some extent) show like this could get a revival 15 years later. Stuff like this rarely seems to happen with anime I actually like.

[OL]

Really, you hope they don't do the music? I always thought half the mood of the show was achieved thanks to their excellent trademark sound. My first thought when I read the news of the new episodes being made was actually "The Pillows better be doing the music."
Sure, I suppose some other band could be used (and there are indeed a plethora of excellent Japanese bands that'd probably be cool with it), but to me, switching out The Pillows would be like switching out Yoshiyuki Sadamoto's art style; it'd just feel... less-FLCL.

[AnimeGamer183]

I have to agree, The Pillows return to at least some of the music in FLCL would be rad. They were great in the first show, and I remember listening to the actual soundtrack my friend bought that had all The Pillows music from FLCL. I would be cool with a modern equivlant of them for the 2 new seasons though.

[Rakim]

You heard me! lol

I'm a massive fan of the band, but I honestly don't think their music is up there in quality anymore to compete with themselves from that era. I'd rather they just sit this one out than appear on the world stage in their current form.

Coincidentally, they have a new album coming out in the next couple weeks. Here's the video for the lead single.

phpBB [video]

They just don't have that youthful je ne sais quoi anymore that made them match with the themes of the show so well.
The only way I could see using them again work would be if they used their older albums that weren't included in the show last time. The band is probably too proud for that and would want to do the same as last time and use their 3 most recent albums, though.

The Pillows will probably get the job so I'm already prepared to be underwhelmed.

[Calshot]

Boku Dake Ga Inai Machi aka Erased.


A show about a guy with time-traveling powers tries to stop a serial murderer. Pilot is great, but the show gradually declines in quality (but is still decent) until the last 2 episodes, where it goes full retard. It was too inconsistent with the time travel. The other plots seemed to distract the author from developing the murder mystery, so the killer's identity ends up being pretty obvious.

Still worth a watch, but it ended up being overhyped from its flavor-of-the-season status.

[AnimeGamer183]

Funny, I was thinking about making a post about that very anime, guess I have no choice now. I have been hearing alot of good things about that show, a few different people I know seems to think its the bees knees "this season", I am kind of wondering what exactly that means but im guessing the time from when alot of new anime starts airing (around summer/fall to winter/sping the next year). I just never really looked at it as there being a season for anime but on to the point. Apparently the last episode of erased made my friend cry or some shit? I am still trying to figure out if I should watch it.

[KiBa]

Neat show.

[Riku Rose]

The first photo from the Ghost in the Shell movie:

[OL]

Saw that the other day. Irritates the shit out of me to no end.
And it's not even so much that it's an American movie (though I would have preferred to see a live-action Ghost out of the Japanese first; the original stories correlate directly to Japanese politics) or the fact that the whole thing is clearly being whitewashed all to hell.
It's that it's Scarlet Johannson.
I mean, fucking hell, talk about one of the most overexposed, overrated actresses around right now. Something about her I just find really unappealing. And she keeps getting these "tough girl" roles, and it never works. She's completely unconvincing every time. She's easily the worst thing about the Avengers movies.
Hey ScarJo: being half-monotone does not equate to being a badass. Just so's ya know.
But hey, that's what we're going to get out of her: constant flat delivery of lines with a Charlie Hunnam-esque air of stuckup-ed-ness. Ya know, a lot like Black Widow. And Lucy.
Fucking no thanks.
There are a thousand and one other actresses who would have been a better choice.

[AnimeGamer183]

Yeah, when i heard news they were looking in to special effects to make her look more asian, I began to question whether or not I should even bother with this film. I guess hollywood wanting to make anime live action movies is a slippery slope, especially when the majority of the story takes place in Tokyo, they choose white cast members to play japanese roles (which may or may not be a problem, depending on who you ask), and they are filming in New Zealand? I'm just on the fence about the whole project, GitS is precious to anime fans, and it seems like it may end up getting the tried and true hollywood comic book movie treatment we all have seen lately, NOT what I want from this project.

Also, am I the only one that thinks Johanson is rather plain? I see her being praised as one of the hottest women on the planet, im just like... ? I dont see this at all, shes attractive has slender fit body but I dont find her that pretty, and she doesnt have enough T and A to be considered amongst the hottest on the planet, like not even close. She doesnt have the body to play Motoko.

[KiBa]

My main problem is that I simply do not like Scarlett Johansson. She doesn't look the part, but not for the reasons I'm hearing people scream about. She meets no traditional standard of beauty, and certainly the Major isn't supposed to have a common-looking cyborg body.

But what really blows me away is that the entire world is up in arms over the white-washing of this particular character. I don't know what movies or TV shows anyone else watched, but lets go back to the original film and TV shows, since GiTS isn't popular because of the manga, which has a different style. Here is a quote I just pulled from an outrage site: "Motoko Kusanagi is a canonically Japanese character". Is she? Not explicitly. Her cyborg body in Oshii's original Ghost in the Shell clearly had ethnically Caucasian features by design. Blue eyes, no epicanthic fold at all, and "androgynous"-to-Japanese (i.e. classical Greek) facial features. Unless they were going for a John bloody Wayne as Ghengis bloody Khan look, in no way can anyone with eyes construe the Major as ethnically Japanese in the original bloody feature film of the franchise. [And Bateau is white, of course, Section 9 being a multinational organization, though it is part of the Japanese government.]

Now, what does, say, Stand Alone Complex say about her ethnicity? Once again, her cyborg body defies ethnic stereotypes, like most anime characters. She is not particularly Asian, and not particularly Caucasian either, and this time she has brown eyes and purple hair. Keeping in mind that Motoko Kusanagi is really just a bit of brain tissue, her cyborg body could (and has) resembled anything. That she is culturally Japanese is without controversy, as it's Japanese fiction, the character has likely resided in Japan her whole life, and the name she is known by is Japanese. But is that her real name? She could be anyone. That's the whole point of the 'Ghost in the Shell' concept. She could really be a 58 year old black man from Detroit, and it makes no difference to the character.

So, let's talk the genetics of that bit of post-racial brain tissue remaining of what was once the original whatever her real name was. Episode 11, Season 2 GiTS: SAC: Kusanagi's Labyrinth – AFFECTION. Here we get a rare glimpse at the Major's backstory, and it is revealed that she was in a terrible plane crash as a little girl, a plane ostensibly coming from either Russia, Europe, or the U.S., since her fellow crash victims are depicted as blond white people. Her body was destroyed, however, wrapped up in bandages for the entirety of the hospital flashback. As much of her brain that could be saved was transferred into a cybernetic body with her signature SAC brown eyes and purple hair. Her pre-crash child body depicted in a brainhack sequence once again defies ethnic classification, and may not be accurate, as it was a brainhack vision. Straight brown hair and brown eyes, suggesting possible Asian descent, but no epicanthic fold of her eyelids, so she could easily be white as well. Whether her real name is Motoko Kusanagai is not revealed, but it is suggested to be a code name (as she is an intelligence officer) because her fellow crash survivor wasn't able to find her in the years following their recovery. Furthermore, the Japanese government's grant of her early cybernetic body to survive the crash that orphaned her came with the cost of working for them and being trained to utilize the superabilities of her body as an intelligence officer for the nation, leaving open the possibility of her being any ethnicity or nationality. Her original identity is and always was left ambiguous in the movies and shows, with at least the original film explicitly depicting her cybernetic body as a white woman of northern European descent, like Scarlett Johansson.

Thus, why da interwebz has chosen this particular character in this particular franchise to 'draw the line heya this far no farther and I will make them pay for what they've done' on Hollywood whitewashing makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. There are SO many movies the casting of which are much more egregious than this decision, which in reality fits into the canon of the source material (100% sure no producer is referencing the manga during the production of this film). But really none of the recent netrage has been appropriate. Emma Stone as Allison Ng in Aloha is often cited as an example of whitewashing. Really? You can "whitewash" a half-white character? That suggestion is in itself a racist judgement that whites are the standard deviated from, and half-whites must therefore be portrayed by Asian actors. And worse, if we are to cast only half-Asians as half-Asians, you isolate half-Asians as a distinct group in need of constant categorization. What fool primitive racist instinct is at work here under the preposterous guise of anti-racism? You want to complain about genuine whitewashing? Let's talk about Dragonball: Evolution. WTF was that POS!!!! I'll tell you: the only movie worse than The Last frelling Airbender!

The only thing that will be confusing for ignorant western audiences is why a white woman has a Japanese name (because Aryans can't even imagine a foreign regime under which whites are minority immigrants expected to assimilate). Quite frankly, given the above facts about what GiTS is and has always been even if no one noticed, it's much more absurd that producers wanted to digitally "yellowface" Johansson in the first place, when the character could be played by a toaster and still fit into canon!

Oh, and the Japanese entertainment industry yellowwashes/whitefaces constantly, and I haven't heard so much as a peep from the SJWs (especially the anime fans among them complaining about Johansson's race as opposed to her unattractiveness) because at heart they are really guilt-ridden racists who cannot stomach a world where we can all pretend to be of any ethnicity for fun because we all love each other and regard each other as equals, so they desperately try to accuse everyone else of being what they know they themselves really are inside.

Rant complete. Please PM all hate mail so I can conveniently cry over them for years to come.

[sand4fish]

Saw that the other day. Irritates the shit out of me to no end.
And it's not even so much that it's an American movie (though I would have preferred to see a live-action Ghost out of the Japanese first; the original stories correlate directly to Japanese politics) or the fact that the whole thing is clearly being whitewashed all to hell

On another note in exchange we are finally getting a true Japanese Godzilla movie after that American take in 2014.

phpBB [video]

Just take it in on that music... Chills all over me every time I watch the trailer.

BTW, anyone have any news on that Hollywood AKIRA movie? I'm still on hopes it got canned.

[AnimeGamer183]

TBH I would have prefered this whole GitS film be done by a japanese film company, japanese producers, and with Shirow and Oshii involved and mostly japanese actors (since it does take place in japan, and they created the property) but it is okay to cast the way certain characters have to be, but still have it be a japanese language film. Guess thats too much to ask, these projects when they have been in production purgatory for years and finally start coming up from the cracks its always hard whats to make of them, this case is no different sadly. Ghost in the Shell has massive potential as a live action film but im not sure I like the route they are taking this one.

[KiBa]

I used to hope a GiTS film would open the way to a Deus Ex film, but now they'd essentially make a Human Revolution film, which I don't want. I want a JC Denton film.

Even the one screenshot they've released of Scarlett Kusanagi smacks of 'generic action film' cruft. I can already say with near absolute certainty that this live-action adaptation won't have a modicum of the storytelling sophistication that made S.A.C. popular, no non-linear plot, no potentially confusing brainhack elements, nor even one slow meditative scene like the famous diving scene from the original Oshii film. The onslaught of pointless repetitive explosions and quick cut "ninja" choreography duct taped to an uninspired terrorism plot won't leave room for even 5 seconds of mystical mediation of the nature of the soul and the meaning of life, which is what made GiTS unique. Oh, and it's as certain as the sun rising in all the mornings of the world that it won't have a memorable soundtrack like those of Kawai and Kanno. At best, we'll get generic Zimmer-esque techno beats, nothing of the brilliance of Interstellar or melodiousness of Gladiator. In a word, it will be forgettable. Hollywood can't make art films anymore. It's all cookie-cutter crap. That's the real reason why people are angry. They have no more faith that the present handful of mainstream producers in America can make a good movie.

The only way I would go see an American-made GiTS is if it were directed by David Lynch or some other practitioner of transcendental meditation who gets what philosophical fiction is all about. This thing would need to be written and directed like Blade Runner or Lost Highway in order to be any good. We all know that won't happen. They're making this for a different audience.

[Sonikku]

Unfortunately the budget you would need to do "artsy" in this universe and do it well would requires a big audience turn out to make the business model viable. But to get that kind of budget a director has to meet a wide number of bullet points set forth by the suits for the sake of reaching out to all the demographics. That often means diluting the essence of the subject matter to achieve mass market appeal.