Media log, April
Sep. 11th, 2016 10:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jtniehofPolice Squad! + Naked Guns, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Treecat Wars, Genius, ERASED, Ojisan and Marshmallow, GATE Season 2, Mahou Shoujo Nante Mouiidesukara, Konosuba, Joker Game, Re ZERO, Space Patrol Luluco, Twin Star Exorcists, Crane Game Girls, Bakuon!!, Cerberus, Hundred, The Lost Village, Endride, High School Fleet
Police Squad! plus all three Naked Gun movies: I enjoyed Police Squad!, this being my first experience. The movies, sadly give the Zucker-Abrams-Zucker team a little too much room to play; they degenerate into prolonged physical comedy set pieces. Leslie Nielsen's steady deadpan in Police Squad worked better than pulling funny faces in Naked Gun. No matter how funny the faces, they can't measure up to the straight man. All of the movies, but particularly 33 1/3, got progressively worse with the racist and sexist jokes.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2: Felt like it was just checking off the boxes; because of the split this felt more like a series of set pieces rather than having a driving plot.
Treecat Wars (David Weber and Jane Lindskold): The strong point here is a fairly good handling of YA-style romantic entanglement; otherwise, not much else.
Genius (James Gleick): Didn't find its stride until the Caltech (and following) chapters; in particular the Challenger investigation was solid and biting. It's one of those biographies that appears to assume the reader's familiar with the subject, and doesn't go terribly chronologically...so for instance there are lines like "In March..." and it's not clear what year. The "science" and "life" are pretty balanced, and although I'd like to dig more into the background of the scientific thought the surface summary is interesting, as far as it goes.
ERASED: Started out VERY strong and only fizzled a little at the end--the ending is rushed and a little pat, while still leaving a huge amount of dangling threads. There could definitely be more but I'm not hopeful.
Ojisan and Marshmallow: Another three-minute show, cute and, er, fluffy.
GATE season 2: Less vibrant than the first season; I was hoping for more politics on our side of the Gate and all we got was the other side.
Mahou Shoujo Nante Mouiidesukara: It's a three-minute magical girl parody. Funny, yes (particularly in the first episode), but doesn't go particularly far.
Konosuba: Checked the generic swords-and-sorcery box very nicely while consistently funny. The characters are all flawed, but in ways that are unique to them, amusing, and don't undercut their humanity.
Joker Game (1 ep): We've got one achingly naive POV character and the rest are the pretentious arrogant types of "we can see reality far better than you" while just being...wrong. Think red-pill-ers.
Re ZERO (1/2 ep): Hey we've seen Konasuba and Yu-shibu and can make a generic fantasy too!
Space Patrol Luluco (1ep): Wow. Just too over-the-top without really being funny. (I found out much later it's basically one big in-joke of other Studio Trigger shows.)
Twin Star Exorcists (1/2ep): I don't think there's much to say other than we bounced off it hard.
Crane Game Girls (1 ep): Huh? Just, huh?
Bakuon!! (1/2 ep): We made an anime about how much we hate Yowapeda.
Cerberus (1 ep): The first five minutes seemed interesting but boooored after that.
Hundred (1 ep): Just bored...another one that seems rather trite and full of egotistical characters.
The Lost Village (2 eps): I hate all the characters and there's nothing to grab me: nothing about the characters' past, no hint of what's so special about the place they're going--or rather, the connection between random place with weird stories and "getting away from it all." This might just be something that we don't get, living in a country where if you want to ditch it all you can just up and move.
Endride (1 ep): Didn't really grab us; a lot of characters running around doing things but didn't show enough motivation to be interesting.
High School Fleet (1/2ep): Very, very rote, without the sort of self-aware zaniness of, say, Girls Und Panzer.
Police Squad! plus all three Naked Gun movies: I enjoyed Police Squad!, this being my first experience. The movies, sadly give the Zucker-Abrams-Zucker team a little too much room to play; they degenerate into prolonged physical comedy set pieces. Leslie Nielsen's steady deadpan in Police Squad worked better than pulling funny faces in Naked Gun. No matter how funny the faces, they can't measure up to the straight man. All of the movies, but particularly 33 1/3, got progressively worse with the racist and sexist jokes.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2: Felt like it was just checking off the boxes; because of the split this felt more like a series of set pieces rather than having a driving plot.
Treecat Wars (David Weber and Jane Lindskold): The strong point here is a fairly good handling of YA-style romantic entanglement; otherwise, not much else.
Genius (James Gleick): Didn't find its stride until the Caltech (and following) chapters; in particular the Challenger investigation was solid and biting. It's one of those biographies that appears to assume the reader's familiar with the subject, and doesn't go terribly chronologically...so for instance there are lines like "In March..." and it's not clear what year. The "science" and "life" are pretty balanced, and although I'd like to dig more into the background of the scientific thought the surface summary is interesting, as far as it goes.
ERASED: Started out VERY strong and only fizzled a little at the end--the ending is rushed and a little pat, while still leaving a huge amount of dangling threads. There could definitely be more but I'm not hopeful.
Ojisan and Marshmallow: Another three-minute show, cute and, er, fluffy.
GATE season 2: Less vibrant than the first season; I was hoping for more politics on our side of the Gate and all we got was the other side.
Mahou Shoujo Nante Mouiidesukara: It's a three-minute magical girl parody. Funny, yes (particularly in the first episode), but doesn't go particularly far.
Konosuba: Checked the generic swords-and-sorcery box very nicely while consistently funny. The characters are all flawed, but in ways that are unique to them, amusing, and don't undercut their humanity.
Joker Game (1 ep): We've got one achingly naive POV character and the rest are the pretentious arrogant types of "we can see reality far better than you" while just being...wrong. Think red-pill-ers.
Re ZERO (1/2 ep): Hey we've seen Konasuba and Yu-shibu and can make a generic fantasy too!
Space Patrol Luluco (1ep): Wow. Just too over-the-top without really being funny. (I found out much later it's basically one big in-joke of other Studio Trigger shows.)
Twin Star Exorcists (1/2ep): I don't think there's much to say other than we bounced off it hard.
Crane Game Girls (1 ep): Huh? Just, huh?
Bakuon!! (1/2 ep): We made an anime about how much we hate Yowapeda.
Cerberus (1 ep): The first five minutes seemed interesting but boooored after that.
Hundred (1 ep): Just bored...another one that seems rather trite and full of egotistical characters.
The Lost Village (2 eps): I hate all the characters and there's nothing to grab me: nothing about the characters' past, no hint of what's so special about the place they're going--or rather, the connection between random place with weird stories and "getting away from it all." This might just be something that we don't get, living in a country where if you want to ditch it all you can just up and move.
Endride (1 ep): Didn't really grab us; a lot of characters running around doing things but didn't show enough motivation to be interesting.
High School Fleet (1/2ep): Very, very rote, without the sort of self-aware zaniness of, say, Girls Und Panzer.