Naruto is Mid? 🗑️DUMPSTER DIVE🗑️
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- Naruto may be the most shonen anime to ever shonen, but does it deserve to have the dreaded label of "mid"?
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My biggest hot take in anime is that new anime fans should venture outside of Shonen I’d they want something other than the tropes that work in shonen.
I've been watching anime since around 1999 (started with pokemon), and I've experienced many different types and genres. But at the end of the day, Shonen is still my favorite genre. It's why I still religiously read Shonen Jump on the Viz app every Sunday.
@@Morgil27 I love it too. But people need to venture out more. They become stagnant and they are going to complain when they’ve been given more
@@Morgil27 Shounen isn't a genre. It's a demographic.
@@SukiNoKoe it’s both tbh. Genre names tend to come from demographics. I.e boy toy etc.
@@nexusgiga uh no. Shounen is not a genre lol
*My hot take for Dumpster Dive:* I think the real reason people hate Makoto from School Days so much isn't necessarily because he's a cheater, but rather that his character felt like a betrayal. I mean, let's face it, there are other anime characters who have done WAY worse things but Makoto's hated a lot more. Makoto at first was a very relatable character (a teenager who has little to no experience with the opposite sex), so at first we're rooting for him to get the girl he's crushing on. But then to see him turn into a scumbag is like a punch to the gut for those who felt a connection due to the relatability.
Hmm, I like this take. In the end he didn't only betray his close friend, his crush and many other girls, but all of us.
He got a fine death . Can't ask for more.
You're absolutely right. Though I didn't get any enjoyment from his death like other people in the internet seem to do. I mean yeah, he was a scumbag but he was also a teenager. He could've realized his mistakes and become a better person with time. He didn't deserve to die.
I first came across Trigun by accident, if memory serves. I the. Found out that Johnny Young-Bosch was the VA for Vash, and I put in my top 5 now. Mostly because that was, from what I heard, his first VA gig, and I’ve watched plenty of other shows where he shows up as one character or another, and it’s pretty amazing to see how far he’s grown in that industry.
Naruto really suffered hard to not having much in the way of a lack of planning. From deciding years in to introduce an elemental system (and acting like it's too advanced to teach the ninja equivalent of Pokemon typing to children) to killing off a huge chunk of the cast and having magic bring them back to life (when we had absolutely no indication it was a thing prior) to the incredible amount of foreshadowing that was either missing or so on the nose the readers/viewers called it years ahead of time. But it did enough right to inspire tons of far better series so I can very much appreciate it's creation and while I would never reread/rewatch am glad it came out.
Here's a hot take, I liked the Violent Jack "review" you already did. I had no idea what the movie was until I saw your video and got me to watch them just to see what all the fuss was that you were making, and after watching them I can understand why there wasn't really much to talk about it and still have the video up. It's a series you have to experience for yourself
And one you can never really describe as anything other than generally unpleasant.
I didn't like it at all but he said sometime ago that he enjoyed making it so that's nice I guess.
Given the fact he built up him doing a review of Violent Jack for months then posted a self-pitying video where he whines about how people expect him to do the thing he promised, I found it to a letdown.
@@a.dennis4835I wasn't there for the build-up, so it doesn't really bother me
Naruto is like one of those dreams you wake up from. The experience varies from night to night but every time you try to recount it into a cohesive narrative it sort of falls apart under its own weight.
It’s funny you say dream because the main villain of naruto basically wanted to put everybody under a spell that puts them into a dreamworld where they experience the reality they desire the most. I like to think that’s how the series ended because the current state of the naruto franchise is just a shadow of what it used to be.
remember when both Digimon the movie and Shrek shared the same soundtrack? scary times indeed.
my hot take: tokusatsu show like kamen rider ultraman and super sentai etc. are the closest we ever gonna get to a "live action anime"
The videogames got me to watch the anime. Most of my enjoyment of it probably comes from me being new to the medium at the time.
Same scenario for me. Besides Pokemon it's the first anime I can remember getting attached to. I still have fond memories of it but trying to rewatching it just for the fun of it was more difficult that I remember.
I think I might've known about the games and then we got a VHS in the mail Phelous covered this year that talked about the Pokemon anime, we were hooked for a time
In school , it was the game of thrones when ash started the Pokemon league. Good memories. I remember when the card was big , that they were mugging people for them. Most didn't even know how to play the card game.
What he's saying is that the Pokemon BRAND is stronger than any medium it's tied to. It's not necessarily a gateway drug to anime. It's just popular on its own.
Same here. I wasn't even aware of the anime until i flipped to upn one weekday morning at 7am. and the anime was apparently out before the video games in the US.
Regarding the violence Jack episode I feel like the obvious answer is to make it a patreon exclusive that way you don't have to worry as much about sensors
He already reviewed Violence Jack years ago, but took the episode down. You'll have to look pretty hard to find it these days but it's worth it.
@@BuzzMandrill it’s technically not a real review, more a short film disguised as a review. He doesn’t use any clips or talk that much about his feelings on it. The whole point of the video was how he COULDN’T do a proper review of it.
If he does make another video on it, maybe it will be a more traditional review.
Manga and Anime's influence on international audiences. When your local public library has all of Vinland Saga, Battle Angel Alita, and started carrying Spy x Family. When there are plenty of books with titles that say "How to draw Manga style". When there are DVD rentals of Miyazaki films and Rintaro's Metropolis.
The simple understanding that a fun complete mess is still achieving the goal of entertainment is really need in a lot of genres. Just because something has imperfections doesn't mean its trash. Sometimes the imperfections make it fun.
Sometimes
This is the internet, something is either a perfect masterpiece or complete irredeemable trash that no one should watch, there are no “guilty pleasures” anymore
Yeah, man. I still enjoy watching 300 from time to time, despite it being a schlocky mess. Sometimes I just want to sit down and laugh at some trash. Heck, 300 is at least visually stimulating.
That's basically my defense for the original Pokemon games.
Hot Takes 1& 2:
1- When Hayao Miyazaki Dies, Studio Ghibli will never produce another mega hit movie again. maybe reasonable successes but no ultra blockbusters. (like disney in the late 70's/and 80's)
2- (Slightly ambiguous on being about anime this one) I think most Ani-tubers are lazy when it comes to research on anime history particularly when it come to anime before the 1980's. or they'll just parrot what somebody else barely researched years ago. (case in point Kimba the white lion)
For the sake of transparency, this now edited comment was used to advertise the original sponsor of this video, which has also since been edited to remove said sponsorship integration, as the intended period of time for it's inclusion has ended.
HOW DARE YOU CRITICISE THE STREAMLINE DUB!?!?!?! IS NOTHING SACRED!?!?!?!
EDIT: ALso, the globalization thing: It's not that anime is globalizing and adapting to an international audience, it's globalization that is doing exactly what it was sold as doing back in the 80's and 90's: putting a McDonalds in every country, exporting American values and media to the world at large, and generally making everywhere the same.
80's and 90's anime is more exotic not because it wasn't made for an international audience (most american cartoons from the 80's and 90's had a fair number of Japanese names in the credits. I'm not talking Robotech, Voltron, or the likes, but Thundercats, He-Man, TMNT, etc..) , but because the world is simply far more flat, uniform, and bland...
EDIT EDIT: Think about it. What are we really nostalgic about? The tattoos on Crying Freeman, The mixed bathhouse scenes, the shrine maidens, fox spirits, etc.
Watch more modern yet thoroughly "japanese" series like Mokke or Natsume's book of friends, or how we collectively RAVED about Mononoke. Tatami Galaxy and Bakemonogatari also tend to rank highly amongst us older fans... It's the distinctly "exotic" aspects. (and this kinda disproves the hot take, while, admittingly they are becoming more rare, and the "exotic" is less "exotic".)
Naruto is Mid AT BEST.
I don't agree with the last one, BUT, I think it misses something more important: We have a LOT of renewed interest in the older titles, and a lot of youtubers like hazel (who I have a love hate relationship with, as I lived in times she writes about and she hadn't), andKaiserBeamz ' s Kyoto Video series, who focus on old stuff, and we got more niche reviewers (Love The Anime Tea for her coverage of shoujo, which gets forgotten), and instead of dragging the old classics, they're talking about the older shows that would otherwise be forgotten, and keeping them in the anime discussion...
And for a hobby that has the memory of a goldfish, (seriously. When was the last time Nodame Cantibile or Paradise Kiss even crossed someone's mind? Ergo Proxy only recently made a slight blip on people's radar due to it being put on Hulu. Anyone catch season 2 of Made in Abyss? Do you even remember Made in Abyss? Land of the Lustrous? No. ), this is probably MORE important and a MORE important thing to do...
Cause the old stuff needs to have people watch it more than it needs people to just say it's "mid".
I haven't heard of Land Of The Lustrous, I'll check that out.
Hot take: Giant Robo the animation is one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in a long time in terms of music, animation, etc. You can just feel the love put into it.
My hot take: Giant Robo and what could be its successor Big O would have been better if they DIDN'T include the giant robots. Yes, I am indeed an old school and long time fan of the "Giant Robot" trope going back to the days of Force Five and Tranzor Z. But in those two specific cases, the giant robots actually seem to distract from the more interesting ideas and stories of their respective series.
I am not saying your wrong. Just that it feels like each series would be better served if we didn't keep cutting away to the mech battles.
Hot Take: I feel that despite SAO’s negative reception, the story arc from season 2, Mothers Rosario, is probably one of the best things that came out of that series. It focuses much more on Asuna than Kirito, we get to see a glimpse into her life after everything that happened in the first season, and it probably has one of the most emotional/beautiful death scenes I’ve seen in awhile. Had it been divorced from series and just been it’s own thing and given more time to expand on the characters, I feel like this could’ve worked better and become a classic in its own right.
The biggest issue with SAO is that the ideas are very relevant to current issues, but the stigma around the series and some clumsy executions means that a lot of people refuse to give it the time of day
Absolutely! The Mothers Rosario Arc was truly the peak of SAO's storytelling. The concept of the Medicuboid allowing terminally ill patients to still live fulfilling virtual lives was inspired, showing the true potential of what the Nervgear/Amusphere technology can really do for humanity; it's not a far jump to get the a full virtual society like in Summer Wars' Oz. It also has by far some of the best character writing in the series, not just showing Asuna at her strongest, but giving much needed depth to all of the returning cast, even Kirito in his brief appearances. And of course, the best written character in SAO, Yuuki, whose finale never fails to leave me bawling like a schoolgirl.
@@ab2aasd Again, I absolutely agree. Watching it through relatively recently, a lot of it rings disturbingly true in the 2020's, even moreso than in 2012 when it was new. I think a big part of why SAO still carries that stigma is that it was one of the first anime series to be hyped through the roof before launch; in a way, it was kinda the Chainsaw Man of its day. But when it failed to meet that hype in the first 3 episodes the public turned against it; far from being a deconstruction of the many overused Battle Royale and Isekai tropes that we'd recognized even back then, it just seemed to be a repeat of those same tropes, thus giving much the audience the exact opposite of what they thought they'd been promised. But despite, or perhaps even because of the rage, SAO's popularity never really died, kept aloft by both those who genuinely liked it and those who hated it, but either way becoming one of those rare series that everyone is still talking about to this day, one of the last of the Golden Age Giants.
@@sirrliv AGREED 100%^w^. That arc alone definitely deserves so much more love, and serves as a reminder of what SAO could’ve been.
@@ab2aasd True, true.
Hot take:
As time moves on it feels like anime is moving away from actual unique story lines and interesting concepts. To being just cookie cutter Stories being heavy reliance on archetypes and anime tropes. Like how in the early 2000 they were a bunch of harm anime copying Tenshi Muyo, or how the isekai genre is so overpopulated to the point where even the parodies of the parodies.
It all comes down to execution in my opinion you can tell a story with a bunch of overused tropes but if your execution is terrible then the series suffers for it.
I still think that FMA deserves to be number 1 anime.
It features many ideologies without feeling of being forced. And it does not have over exaggerated dialog that respect the characters.
I'll give the manga some respect for Kisame's death scene, that shit was so brutal.
Yeah. He got treated right along with itachi
yeah it was quite the CLIMAX for a shonen JUMP manga
Happy New Year to you and the Missus, Bennett!
Also, all I can say now with that Violence Jack announcement…VIOLENCE IS COMING
@BennettTheSage
The Netflix Death Note could’ve worked… just not as a movie (Death Note is not a movie concept, per se). It should’ve been a 10 episode series, with each episode lasting an hour. Also, it is still not on the level of Dragonball Evolution; at least Netflix’s Death Note actually had potential and some great things from it (I’ll defend Dafoe’s Ryuk to the last).
yeah, i can see this. drop the name allusions as well and handle them like a seperate story in the same universe and it would be good to go i feel
Twofold Hot Take:
Highlander: The Search for Vengeance is the only Highlander sequel that matters. I wish we could have more anime films in the style of Yoshiaki Kawajiri, its a real treat.
I'll grant you its a better sequel than the live action ones, but thats such a low bar. The animation is admirable, but the story is repetitive and unoriginal.
@@retroanimemike Low bar or not, it didn't stop it from being rad as hell. The scene where he gets the quickening and blows up the building is super cool.
One of my anime hot takes ( if you can even call it that): anime nowadays is a quantity over quality industry. Think about it, out of all the anime that have been released each season in the past say , 5 years , only like 20% or 15% of it is worth watching or talking about. The rest is either just very mid or straight up trash.
I love that last episode of zone news you were on. I laughed my ass off.
Thanks a lot, man!
@@BennettTheSage heck yeah, keep up the good work!
Gonna take the bait and say that the main draw of Knights and Magic is going to be it apareces in SRW, the main character geeking out about the different series was delightful and perfect for the 30 anniversary game
Hot Take: Early Western anime fandom was driven in part by the fact that the anime/manga/video game industry commercialized Japanese fandom decades earlier than American corporations did and they were jealous of all the merchandise.
The 2010s will be looked back on as an anime golden age while the 2020's will be seen as a recession back into the darkness away from the mainstream. With the new monetization method of Crunchyroll (and loss of free Hulu back in the mid 2010s), it's MUCH more difficult to find free and legal ways to keep up with new anime. I'm not saying that this is the death of anime, and I do believe that more money going into the industry is good. However, I feel like the current environment is more or less going to stagnate the growth of anime fans as a whole. There will always be people who are willing to pay or pirate, but when those are the 2 main options, I don't see a path to the mainstream.
Definetly got to agree on that "ok now means hot take."
I think the biggest issue with the GitS live action film is that it wasn't just trying to adapt the original GitS film, but tried to draw influence from ALL of GitS; both films, both seasons of SAC, Arise, the manga, all of which are wildly thematically different from each other. Top that off with some stale Hollywood tropes for the normies in the board room and the result is... a mess. An enjoyable mess for some, but still a mess.
What I find funny is how Japan is like “it’s okay” but Americans were like “it ruined the original!” I think it’s because Japan puts live action and animation on the same level, but American animation fans have to fight for the legitimacy of animation.
@@thomasffrench3639 That makes too much sense. Pretty much the rest of the world sees animation as just as capable as live action, but in America "cartoons are kid's stuff" despite decades of overwhelming evidence to the contrary (Cool World? American Pop? Who Framed Roger Rabbit? A good chunk of Don Bluth's catalog?). And of course the classic rebuttal to that sort of "ruined the original" moaning is "No it didn't. See? The original is right there, untouched. You can still watch it free of any context from the live action film. Free on RUclips, more often than not." But to someone who whines like that, I would be inclined to ask "Have you even watched the original film?" because I have a feeling that more often than not then answer will range from "...Well, no, but..." to "Yeah, of course I did... years ago, in college..."
@@sirrliv I wouldn’t say the rest of the world. In general animation is seen as for a younger audience like kids to people in their 20s. I think by this point people have kinda accepted animation as a medium like any other. But I do think that they are not considered on the same level as television or books. And the boomers in charge of Hollywood still think live action is better because they can market it easier with the actors. Just my two sense on it.
Is chalking a Violence Jack episode up as a loss, monetization-wise, feasible? If so, obviously there's plenty that still can't shown, but he could talk about everything that happens, right?
My hot take would be that Outlaw Star is the best space western anime. I think it's better than Cowboy Bebop and Trigun. I like all three animes, but I feel like Outlaw Star has the most re-watchability. The other two have a lot more somber tones and it's harder to just put on an episode of one of them and enjoy yourself.
I quite enjoyed Outlaw Star. I'm not sure where'd I'd place it in my list however I have warm, positive feelings toward that anime.
Hot Take: Most anime fans (At least English speaking ones) actually hate ecchi and fan service. Take for instance the overwhelmingly positive reaction and praise of recent rom coms with little to no fan service such as Kaguya-Sama, and Quintessential Quintuplets gets while stuff like Girlfriend Girlfriend, Monster Musume, Interspecies Reviewers, World's End Harem, Girls Bravo, and Hensuki regardless of quality are immediately dismissed as "Trash", and "Fap Bait" Because of their sexual content.
Anime hot take: There are still too many anime fans who put Japan on a pedestal purely because "big tits make dick hard". Adding LGBTQ+ characters or having less borderline child porn in an anime doesn't mean it's being "corrupted by western influences". And on that note, I would say that western influences in general are good, actually. My favourite type of media are the ones which have a clear love for a cultural aspect or tradition, like the western influences on Trigun, Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw Star. Western influences add to more diverse and creative stories, rather than being confined to a narrow edgelord ideal of what anime "should" be.
@@thomasffrench3639 Which, I'd say, is part of the problem. That said, there are still plenty of BL and GL stories that aren't sexualised, so that's progress, at least.
@@TheNightmareRider I agree, but it does normalize that behavior, which is a definite positive. I would argue, that it’s probably the only way to normalize it.
My hot take: many producers today not just in anime but in all media. I feel hire many terrible fan fiction writers for there new movies. I've noticed that many new movies coming stick to a theme that doesn't belong in films or they want something made there way. Regardless of how good or bad the thing there writing is.
As a fanfic writer, I am pleased you included the word "terrible" in there. Fanfiction can be great, if the writer cares enough to improve their craft and learn.
Most of the time I doubt the writers are even fans of the media they're hired to write for, because often time the movies/remakes doesn't even resemble the tone or direction of the original medium.
@@Pheonixess or maybe they are fans but realize that they can’t make the same thing over again or they just do the same thing without making it interesting. I would argue that non fans are actually better at making new stuff.
@@thomasffrench3639 You can argue anything, but all the hollywood or netflix remakes would prove otherwise. The instant a non-fan writes a story, they copy paste events and insert none sense no one wants and contradicts the original media. If you have even 1 example of non-fans making a better remake I'd be surprised.
@@Pheonixess not remakes, but sequels. The biggest example is Andor, and Star Trek 2 and 6. As far as remakes I would say Oceans Eleven.
I can't tell if the dude talking about "suspension of belief" is being sarcastic or not. The general populace didn't think the funny haha coughing bat soup disease was that big of a deal for like 4 months despite the fact that we had camera phones and 24 hour news...
I watched Perfect Blue for the first time this and came to the realization that anime movies don’t try anymore. I feel like a lot of anime movies at this point are just being created to make a profit for whatever anime series is popular at the time. Majority are creativity bankrupt as they favor spectacle and animation over everything else. There’s nothing wrong with a movie being like that every once in a while, but it becomes a problem with every movie becomes that.
Anime tie in Movies have been ubiquitous for many decades at this point, and at the very least they aren't as oversaturated as they once were, do you know there were 17 Dragon Ball Movies in only 10 years?. And there are plenty of Anime movies from Science Saru and Studio 4°C that are anything but creatively bankrupt.
Berserk could be adapted into something PG-13 rated and wouldn't suffer as a result. All the gore and sexual violence doesn't always detract from the story but it doesn't really add anything either.
Alright, a real hot take - Samurai Troopers is a freaking classic that deserves to be remembered as fondly as the early anime that overshadowed it. It had everything - bad-ass characters, cool transformations, epic battles, a kick-ass soundtrack - heck, we even got the action figures here in the States! Why has this series been forgotten!? 😭
Sadly, it was overshadowed by it's distant little cousin Sailor Moon.
Ronin Warriors hasn't been forgotten? Its on damn near every streaming platform out there unlike other series of the "classic" types. But I tried to watch it again recently, the story and dialogues don't really hold up. It feels like someone wrote a script for 50+ episodes, only got the money for half that, and the editors didn't have English degrees or experience.
Hot take: Sailor Moon Crystal is a cheap and hastily made money grab shamelessly endorsed by it's creator in an attempt to remain relevant instead of adding something profound to the existing franchise or creating something entirely new.
Also, Shoto fits the angsty rival better. Bakugou is just 100% pure anger at Deku.
Bakugo is a big upgrade to sasuke. Angry rival works
@@Sonicfalcon16 Only because Sasuke was the dumbest character ever put in a anime (unintentionally). Anything is better than how dumb he is. The dude picked the worst option every single f-ing time.
Bakugo is a douchebag, but at least he is not an idiot and also works hard AND IS NICE TO HIS FRIEND! Imagine that.
I hate Bakugo and Sasuke type of edgy characters.
@@Bionickpunk Theyre..They're... very different archetypes.
Agreed. Bakugo is far more based on Vegeta than anyone in Naruto
My hot take: "Maison Ikkoku" is a title people will hate, but when forced to watch, can grow to love.
I got exposed to this series when the only source for the series was fansubbed. One of my friends got bitten by the anime bug, and archived the series just to be complete, but he didn't like the series...until sometime around episode 40 (of the 96 episode series). Likewise, there was another friend who wanted to watch anything (she was laid up with a broken leg), so I gave her the series, and she grew to love it.
My hot take is that Maison Ikkoku is the best Tagahashi series ever. Despite the silly situations, it taps into the basic humanity of (mostly ) ordinary people, even without aliens, martial arts or yokai, which makes them more relatable. I've never related much with Ranma or Inuyasha, but I sure did with Godai.
Most of Pokemon revenue is from the licensed merchandise and nearly all merchandise is based on the Anime characters and character designs of the Pokemon. Does no one else remember what the original game design of Pikachu looks like? No one is buying that.
Hey Bennet, are you going to cover anything from Kyoto Animation, like some of my personal favourites, such as Air, Kanon, both Clannad and After Story, etc? I’d imagine you’d have a field day with them, I’d love to hear your thoughts on them!
Hot take: the longer/more complicated the name of the anime, the more likely to be trash. One Piece, good. Bleach, good. Cowboy bebop, great. But then theres shows out there like "I stepped on my dick and now I'm a zombie dragon maid's under pants" and they are all terrible.
Dunno if you have talked about it yet but have you any thoughts on "Gate"?
I love the premise, it reminds me of playing a Civ game where cavemen attack tanks but it also kinda comes cross as Japanese military propaganda at times to me, abit a bit softer compared to the jingoist stuff you saw out of the US when you guys went into the middle east.
Thoughts?
Also hope you have a fantastic new year :).
Gate is Japanese military propaganda or to say it more accurately, Gate is the Japanese Self Defense Force that can do no wrong and will always be victorious even on foreign soil.
When Naruto started out it was good I'd even dare say great but post timeskip suddenly it became DBZ with Ninjas.
It was always "DBZ" given that's it's influence. People just got off the ride when they couldn't keep playing it off as Ninja Gaiden anymore because the "ninja magic" was real and not hokey smoke bombs tropes about shinobi.
Every shonen is DBZ with ____
"...Every anime nowadays is copying from Naruto". Now I know why I am not really into modern anime anymore. 😕
Or copying Bleach. Most shonen mangas today uses Bleach blueprint (protagonist with hidden power, monsters and organizations that fighting against the monsters).
I want another season of Knights and Magic. The main character's enthusiasm for mecha is just so infectious.
dunno, i still prefer Naruto to most shounen manga that came after it or were coming out during the same time and thought it's first couple of arcs were solid... i don't care for shounen anime much at all these days, but i quite enjoyed re-reading that first half of the manga a couple years ago
For the next Dumpster Dive:
My first experience with Speed Racer what is the Fred Wolf animated American cartoon from the early 90s. The hot takes are:
1. I personally think that show is better than the original Speed Racer anime.
2. For as iconic as the original anime was, the English dub wasn’t great.
I read the manga as a teenager, and got bored by the time skip (volume 18). I had access to all sorts of manga as a kid because I lived next to a library. By the time I picked up Naruto, I had already read Bleach, One Piece, and even Fairy Tail. I really tried like Naruto, but I was so familiar with the cliches and so uninterested by the characters, that it never grew on me. It didn't help that I started reading the manga after seeing Suburb anime like Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, and Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood and 2003
yeah, i had the same issue with Bleach and Fairy Tail coming to them after Naruto and One Piece. I feel fighting shounen in general are to a lot of people just a genre where you pick your favorites at some point and then you are mostly done with it unless there is a genuinely groundbreaking one coming out later
Hot take: These day, I find English dubs on par with subs in terms of acting quality, and prefer the dub especially for action base anime. Not all of us can read fast for varying reasons and it means you can miss the details of what's happening during crucial moments. But people like to scoff and tell me it's because I'm too dumb to read fast... No, if I wanted to read, I'd pick up the manga.
I disagree. However, I will say that subs aren’t as good as elitists claim them to be. People act like they are perfect when they are probably Hollywood acting average, which is still good mind you, but not always a Leonardo DiCaprio.
I like dubs for the simple excuse that I tend to set aside my anime watching time with my weekly folding laundry time. I can't tell you how much of the anime I missed out on when I watched subtitles.
I also agree with though, the voice acting has improved when I started consuming anime in the late 90s.
Will we be getting an Alita: Battle Angel or maybe a Bleach video? I am curious where Alita will go next, as what we got is great but is just the very beginning of the story. You could talk about the first Bleach film, Memories of Nobody, as a condensate of the franchise.
I think after Naruto every carbon copy anime seems to have the following:
The three archetypes you described.
Large part of the story takes place in an academy of sorts, I mean Naruto is just ninja school. Attack on Titan is some kind of giant slaying school, MHA is superhero school, etc.
Adults are mostly useless yet in positions of power and influence and don't have time to get in world ending battles, some might be badass in sheeps clothing if the plot calls for it.
Older heroes tend to die off... despite being barely middle aged so the kiddos can be the new generation despite being still barely in high school.
I have to laugh at Boruto's progress where Naruto and Sauske had to be nerfed by author just so that the "new gen" can get their power creep on.
Lets be real, anime like that is made to sell products. As MasakoX would say: "MARKETING!"
One thing I liked about One Punch Man where instead of everyone being teens, superhero is an occupation.
uhm you are just describing shonen tropes, not naruto.
Attack on Titan is way closer to Gundam than it is to Naruto.
As someone who frequently watched Naruto as a 5th grader and when it stopped airing in Canada read the manga online up until the final chapter.
.... I've nostalgia fondness for characters but I feel nothing for the weak story. Hoard of underdeveloped characters and underwhelming final arcs.
It's a series that you spend time thinking of ways it could be better and not necessarily enjoying it for what it offers.
Anyway...it absolutely is mid to the point where I can't even consider its next gen because of how much the original series disappointed me in the end.
4:03 I actually haven't heard anyone talk about SAO in quite a while.
My hot take is: I think that a lot of the anime discourse is about either agreeing with or rebuking culture war bullshit and that's poisoning the well for actually discussion about themes and criticism. For example if someone points out how anime has a problem with sexualizing female characters (especially ones that are underage) your more likey to get into an argument about how your an SJW rather than a conversation about sexism and the male gaze in anime.
The most significant part of SAO I would argue, is where it landed in Western fanbase. While not the first Anime to be simulcast, far from it, it was one of the first to have a sizeable audience while it was airing. Just think, we went from the majority of people not seeing an Anime until it was dubbed, or at least having a sub-only VHS/DVD release, to a good chunk of people watching it while it was still airing in Japan.
Which is also what resulted in it's spotty reputation, as early one it seemed very promising and drummed up a lot of hype, when that wasn't met it quickly soured people on it. Nowadays most people are more cautious of highly anticipated titles, and unlike then, if it doesn't go over well, they just jump onto one of the many other simulcasted shows. Back when SAO came out there was less shows being simulcasted so the attention on SAO continued way past the first seasons final episode. Some talentless RUclipsrs even made a career out of shitting on SAO.
Hot Take: Spawn the Animated Series is one of the best adult cartoons ever (despite season 2 & 3 have mixed quality). It has amazing animation, use of shadows, interesting themes, underrated voice acting, it streamlining a convoluted source material, an underrated Shirley Walker soundtrack, and one of Keith David’s best roles.
Here's a hot take I guarantee only I will say.
The Dinosaur Wars Izenborg series or (Attack of the super monsters for Rifftrax fans) desperately needs a full series sub/dub release. We need to know just how crazier it gets.
Apparently, the Saudi royal family are big fans.
Here's my hot take... Saint seiya did the loner trope who became a villain/hero later on way before DBZ did and did it way better... Saint seiya was way better that midruto
Oh, Here We Go. I think I should be thrilled to be in this episode, better to be here than to get the Run Around, at least that's The Impression That I Get. I really do think the movie has an All Star soundtrack, though I admit All My Friends Are Metalheads. There's just something neat about the genre's high energy and the fact that they also felt like part of the counterculture (at least where I was). For Kids in America its interesting to get exposure to Japanese culture, but through this highly altered lense. I could probably talk on the film's influence on me for at least One Week straight.
That's as many as I could fit, gold sticker to anyone who can fit The Rockafeller Skank into normal conversation. Genuinely glad to have posed a trash opinion worth pointing out. Have a great new year Sage.
My hot take is that Detective Conan's arc plot is the least interesting thing about the show, I watch it just for solving the mystery of ludicrously overplotted crimes committed for the flimsiest of motives. Who cares if Shinichi ever busts the evil organization and regains his full size?
The problem with how Cowboy Bebop in particular is treated in "the discourse" isn't really a problem with the show itself, but with how it's treated by its most insufferable stans, particularly those who want to overstate its uniqueness by denigrating other Japanese animation: "Oh, it's great because it's *not like* other anime, it draws on *real* cinema," while ignoring that a lot of anime pulls from live-action and Western influences, just in different ways. Look at any decent OVA which has survived the test of time and tell me these directors weren't working off a steady diet of neo-noir and action movies from the States; for more contemporary examples, look at anything the late Osamu Kobayashi or Rie Matsumoto or Masaaki Yuasa or Naoko Yamada have ever worked on; hell, just this last season, look at Chainsaw Man and Akiba Maid War, two extremely different shows drawing on entirely different cinematic traditions with incredible panache. I swear, it's the weirdest sort of reverse Orientalism.
And on that note: Looking to the global market or not, while anime is indeed heavily influenced by international popular culture and art, it's still a very distinctly Japanese approach to the greater medium. As an object-lesson, consider another show from the last season, the delightful period comedy My Master Has No Tail, which is about a bakedanuki becoming enamoured with the art of rakugo and apprenticing to a kitsune rakugoka against the background of the increasing industrialisation of Taishō-era Japan. Now, if you're unfamiliar with traditional Japanese comic storytelling, folklore and history, that probably sounds like utter gibberish! In practice it's a shockingly accessible series, but on paper, you have to explain a *lot* to an uninformed Westerner just to get across that it's a show where a shapeshifting woodland creature learns to do what are essentially Japanese vaudeville routines in the '20s. And the thing is, a lot of anime is like that, just in far subtler ways; you have to recalibrate things as simple as "how many years high school is broken up into" and "how people talk about seasons or say 'I love you.'" This idea that anime is somehow "less Japanese" now just strikes me as really silly hand-wringing.
I think tie in anime media to video games can work and be in cannon material as well as not just seem like a cheap cashgrab. For instance the Devil May Cry anime series.
Tales of Symphonia's anime was well adapted too
I gotta say that we absolutely do NOT need an 'actual' review of Violence Jack.
I completely LOVED your non-review take on it. It told us everything we needed to know about the anime, and an insight into what you were feeling about it. I don't feel it is an anime we need to analyze scene-for-scene, or come away with a complete understanding of what actually is happening in it. No, we need to come away with an understanding of what it is about, and you did that brilliantly, and I loved the creative flair you put on that whole review.
There is so much of that anime you can't show on youtube, so what do you do? Simple, you do not show it, and then you flex your creativity. Brilliant.
I always seem to brace really hard for the mid to ok takes
And then totally relax for the takes that hit me upside the head like a sledgehammer
Like ducking all the thrown tomatoes only to stand up in time for the Ford F150
I wonder if they gonna give Violence Jack a Devilman Crybaby-style Remake.
I don't think the set of tropes you mentioned really gets to the heart of shounen as a genre. If anything, the core theme of shounen could be called "saving the universe through personal growth," and that idea is a standard most shows fall horrifically short of, and very few transcend.
Glad to hear you're to the point of considering it. I've grown a lot since then and respect your decision to not review it at the time in ways I didn't use to.
My Hot take: the live action Speed Racer is the best anime live action adaptation. It is a very stupid movie but so was the anime.
Really should have had Black Clover characters in the mix when you were showing how many times the trope was used in popular stories. I think it gets bonus points for having the MC and his best friend/rival both be orphans.
My hot take is that the best Gundam shows are the ones with newtypes. Whenever I see someone say a show “doesn’t have newtypes” I automatically know that that show will be overhyped and will get praised for something that has nothing to do with quality, and is strictly based on their distaste for psychics in Gundam (even though other Sci Fi have psychics and no one bats an eye). The only exception to this is Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket.
What about Turn A?
I would love for more people to talk about Knight's and Magic. It's a healthy and fun isekai made for mecha nerds and those into mechanical design porn more than anything given that a large portion of the story is dedicated to building mecha which the anime skipped over for the most part. It was never going to be mainstream considering it's not written or paced like a typical action shounen nor is it subversive in anyway, happy to play both fantasy and anime tropes straight as an arrow, but there's nothing wrong with it either. Plus the main character, Erni, even though his abilities are those of an overpowered fanfiction OC, is still effortlessly likable with his enthusiasm for giant robots and also a little scary with how unhinged he can get, making you question just how much he values the lives of those around him despite all the good he's done. He's an interesting switchup from your average dumb pervert or edgeboy protagonist for an isekai. Or at least he was when K&M first came out about a decade ago.
I know you were going for low-hanging fruit, but I do think it's one of the better ones. Plus, given how poorly the anime represented the source material and how unadaptable it is, I really don't think there's anyone that would argue we needed another season.
This is an "Anime Adjacent" hot take related to Sage's opinion of the Ghost in the Shell movie.
Here we go: The opinion that the original Ghost in the Shell is a seminal work of philosophy is bunk predicated on mulitple repeated viewings and hours upon hours of navel gazing as to "what it all means" and colored by the much superior Stand Alone Complex. The truth of the matter is that, on first viewing, Ghost in the Shell is, aside from a precious few high points, excessively long winded and boring. So for a first attempt to be as well put together as the 2017 film is a miracle.
Nostalgia's a lying bitch sometimes.
Just a kind of dovetail from that comment about anime trying to appeal to a International audience.
I don't think that's really the case, I think more specifically the person is frustrated with what translators are doing with anime and manga. It's kind of entertaining. Growing up in the '80s, it was really difficult to find anime to watch because of the cost and because this was the era of vhs. But it could be even more frustrating because translations could be very literal and dubbing would be focused more on matching the flapping lips than what was actually being said. Companies were also operating under a bit of a shoe string budget so they didn't really have the time to take the time to do it properly, or even try to insert an extra frame or two of animation.
I would say in the 90s the pendulum swung just enough over to where you got more accurate translations and dubbing. Things that did not reinterpret what is being said but put it in a better context for a non Japanese audience.
These days however, a lot of the companies that are translating Japanese anime and bringing it to Western audiences are going to enough extremes to wear it appears like they are taking liberties with the source material. They are making translations that deviate from the intent of the source material because they think they can do it better in some fashion. Either they fancy themselves a writer and they think what is being presented as clunky, or they have their own particular soapbox to rent from and are making adjustments to the scripts to be more in line with that.
What example that comes to mind for me, and I'm going to stay up front it's a minor example but I'm hoping it illustrates the principle, is Miss kobayashi. In the manga Lucoa is a relatively sleepy, lazy Dragon goddess who doesn't make much of an effort to dress up because of that and because of her past as a fertility goddess. It's a running gag in early volumes of the manga that she's constantly getting in trouble for dressing inappropriately. This is compounded by the fact that she is the familiar for Shota who is a small boy so her outfits are even more egregious. In the anime dub there's a moment where she is so reprimanded for her clothing and she goes on a rant about the patriarchy. For a lot of reasons this doesn't fit the character.
Fortunately, there's always subtitling. And it's a blessing in this day and era that you can purchase a release that usually has both. But it can be frustrating. And to someone like me it feels like it's kind of disrespectful to the original writer.
I'm not saying this is the end all of everything, and I really don't appreciate when I go online and I see idiots on social media going absolutely bonkers at the translators or the publishers. I do like when it's handled properly. Yen press for example was publishing a manga where the main character dresses and drag. The American translator decided to try and make the character transgender, and started rewriting a lot of the dialogue and events to conform to their worldview. Fans of the manga and fans of manga in general were overall very respectful and polite in anything I saw on twitter, and eventually Yen press announced that they were going to correct the translations for future release. That's how it should be handled people. Death threats and overly histrionic comments are not going to make anybody look good
My hot take is madoka magica ruined deconstructions because it popularized the term without it being a good example of a one since being dark and having shock effect doesn’t make a deconstruction while something like princess tutu which is dark and has plot twists unlike madoka it fleshes out every idea it has and ended in a satisfying manner.
You did not like Madoka? Shame but you do you bro.
But yeah, Princess Tutu is horribly underrated. I do not here about it much on the internet but when I do it is always glowing praise. Personally I blame the fact that none of the really big anime/manga channels such as Gigguk and Mother's Basement have covered for why it has not received any sort of uptick in popularity but whatever.
@@gabrielpadro5589 sadly most big anime RUclipsrs would rather pander to their audience than recommend underrated anime. you the know whole anime is trash and so am i mentality.
Hot take regarding Akira is that it should never be adapted into live action, period. I have no hope it’ll be good with Waititi, but I don’t trust any director to do it justice. Some things only work in certain mediums.
I mean, there is merit for wanting to criticise older shows that are held in high regard. Some of my favourite anime are from twenty years ago and they do have some problems but I still hold them near and dear to my heart because they shaped my perceptions of anime and of animation.
My hot take is *Saber Rider & the Star Sheriffs* is better than *Sei Juushi Bismark* original. Kudos for people who know what I'm talking about without relying on internet 😏
Having seen both, I prefer Bismark
People should've realized that Izuku Midoria was never a subversive character sooner when he kept choosing to destroy his body over and over again dooring the early stages of the series. Then again this does seem like a problem with all main characters to a certain extent.
It was earlier in the season, when he chose to focus on match-up knowledge than using his powers where I liked him the best. Nowadays, he's leaned on his powers even more, which is a crying shame.
Wait, what? People ever thought Midoriya was subversive? First I've seen of it.
Oooh boy, here come the torches and pitchforks
Huh, I forgot I made that comment. So that was a nice surprise. And I appreciate your response, but I stand by my what I said. Allow me to elaborate:
First: I chose Pokemon, because it was the most obvious example. But it was hardly alone in the game turned anime genre. Digimon, Yugi-oh, CardCaptors, etc. For a time most cartoons on Sat morning or after school where one of these shows. And I'd be willing to bet for some, the show was more profitable or more know of the brand.
Second: Even if the anime is only 2% of 118 billion Do you know how much that is? (Rounding down for whole number)-two billion three hundred sixty million dollars. That's still way more than some franchise or big businesses will do in a year. Some in their entire lifespan. So it is still a BIG number to have influence over pop culture.
Third: Stepping away from pokemon specifically- DBZ, Death Note, Cowboy Bebop and others ere popular to get adaptions. Bad adaptations, but adaptions none the less. So somebody thought it was enough of a market to try to capitalize on.
Fourth: People see anime references and influences outside of anime. The Matrix series is famously inspired by a lot of anime visuals. The Akira motorcycle slide shows up in movies. I saw it recently in NOPE. Then there are new popular shows that are so similar to anime, that they basically are ones, like Avatar the last Airbender ( I know a lot of people don't count that because they say anime can only come from Japan, I don't necessarily agree with that statement, but that's a discussion for another time )
Finally, shows like Naruto have gotten popular enough that they can get noticed by the geek culture or main stream.
Wow, a lot more to say on this than I thought.
Honestly, a sort Violence Jack review just talking about it’s history and characters with little footage of the show would work for me. As well as just mentioning some of the fucked upness of it.
I was living in Central America when Naruto debuted in the States, and when i moved back to the US i felt I was too old to get into it. My wife is 5 years younger than me and when we were engaged she implored me to at least read the manga (after an abortive attempt to watch the anime left me cringing). It took me three LONG years, but I finally finished in 2021 and...yeah. "Okay" is being generous. It was a tedious, repetitive slog after the time-skip point. I FORCED myself through the last 15 volumes or so just so I could get to the end of it. Meanwhile her OTHER fave -- "One Piece" -- is fun enough that I'm dreading the point where i catch up to the end.
Naruto is just typical shonen, just like Bleach and other titles that were too drawn out (typical shonen trait). Demon Slayer is tiring too despite being a lot shorter then Naruto or even recent titles like One Punch Man or My Hero Academia.
Most of the discourse surrounding the upcoming Rurouni Kenshin reboot just comes off as unnecessary virtue signaling to me. While I understand not wanting to financially support the mangaka Nobuhiro Watsuki due to what he’s been previously charged with, I think it’s extremely naive to believe that your $7 Netflix or $8 Crunchyroll subscription is even going to come close to his pockets. These platforms typically pay a flat rate for the licensing, streaming, and distribution rights, so he’s already gotten paid whether you watch it legally or not. If anything, that 7-8 bucks are more likely to go towards the slave wages of the translators than ever reach Watsuki, and most people screeching to pirate it were never going to import a blu ray from Japan anyways.
The anime's simply too long and there's simply too many classmate characters. In the end, if you want good experience, you have to pick non-filler episodes and fillers that star the characters you like. And even then, the magic gradually fades away, especially after taming the Nine Tailed. It doesn't help that the arts seem to get worse and worse as time went by. By the time of Boruto, everybody have become so ugly that I need to re-watch the Naruto SS1 again to remind myself how good the main characters used to look when they were children.
Naruto was quality until it fell apart at volume 11 with the hypocritical fight between Neji and Naruto in which Naruto nonsensically wins. This was before they formally revealed who his dad was, but it was always obvious given the time frame the guy died on the night of the fox attack, as well as him looking suspiciously similar to Naruto on Mount Ninjamore.
I reasoned this all out in middle school around 2006 at age 12 and dropped the series after my realization. I still have the first 11 volumes that I got and kept up with when they released, as internet was not an option for me at the time.
The series had great stuff going for it, but it unfortunately ran out of ideas at became a typical shonen after that. I read a few arcs across the next few years in the monthly Shonen Jump, but nothing had the same grit or quality of the Land of Waves arc or even the early parts of the Chunin Exams arc. Didn't help when I learned that Kishimoto didn't even want to make the series anymore and handed off large parts of the production to his assistants, and this is obviously in order to let the series spin its mediocre wheels and generate maximum money before ending.
I enjoyed what was good, but the magic left the series before it was even 25% done with its production. It was a great lesson for me to trust my gut with these things.
P.S. I was really lucky to have the first fight I read be Naruto and Sasuke versus Zabuza's water clone. It was so creative that I re-read it like 20 times. That was the September 2004 issue of monthly Shonen Jump, which I still own. Good times.
The salt must flow~! Also how the fuck did Violence Jack get an uncensored blu ray release!?
Glad you’re gonna try to review violence Jack and I genuinely hope you’ll find a way to do it without getting demonetized. Good luck!
Re: Star Trek, for anyone with aParamount Plus account and would like to get into the franchise, I’d recommend looking at Strange New Worlds (which is a TOS prequel but made w 21st venture sensibilities in mind) or the adult animated series Lower Deck, which satires a lot of Trek tropes but I’ve met a lot of people who have enjoyed that one fandom blind.
Not sure if it's a hot take or a medium take or what have you, but people really need to get over 4kids and their practices which they still just riff on to this day, years after they went bankrupt. It wasn't that bad back then and it certainly isn't now. Their voice performances were consistently good to solid, they clearly put in effort to get things to broadcast practices like their editing of EVERY CARD in Yu-Gi-Oh! and their memorable original themes, and they weren't even the only company doing what they did at the same time. In my opinion had they never touched the sacred cow that is One Piece, they wouldn't have the near constant shitting on that they enjoy to this day. And frankly on my end I wouldn't have heard of One Piece when I did had they not.
I'm actually on board with the person who said review violence jack.
Im not going to pretend like it isnt deeply problematic. It absolutely is. But what i've always found most interesting about Violence Jack is how it fits into the zeitgeist of post apocalyptic fiction of the time. The overal sense of dread that pervaded that time period ranging from worry over oil supplies, environmental collapse, social degradation, and overall just a sense of wasting and hopelessness...its wild to see how almost uniformly several fictional works (jack, hokuto, mad max) all envision this similar, desolate future.
I always felt that violence jacks connections to devilman aside, that was whats most intriguing abouy violence jack. Maybe you can go with that.
Anime was at it's most experimental when every OVA was a PC Engine Game first
The Dungeons and Dragons cartoon is the original isekai anime.
And the art style for Naruto is so darn plain
Re: Pokemon
Amusingly, the very first episode of the anime opens with what looks like the opening video of the Game Boy game, which then transitions into an anime fight. :-D
3:46 Oh hey he mentions Knights & Magic. The series that got to be in Super Robot Wars 30. One of the first SRW games that got to have an official US release and one that I hope did really well for them to make more games and include US mechs in the future.
I never thought I’d see the day Bennett the sage promotes a comic made by 4thage. Hope he doesn’t get cancelled for it.
I do wonder what were to have happened if instead of Robotech being based on Macross, we instead got the first arc based on Mobile Suit Gundam. This might not have been a hot take, but considering just how much of a clusterfuck the legal fallout of Harmony Gold saying "We own Gundam" to Bandai international as opposed to "We own the mechs" to anyone that touched Macross is kind of funny to me. Then again, as my Icon show, Harmony Gold is as much an annoyance as 4kids was back in the mid 2000s for One Piece fans.