Neuronymous's Profile - Reviews

Last OnlineJul 14, 2016 7:53 AM
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BirthdayMar 6, 1989
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JoinedDec 13, 2013

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Aug 7, 2015

Ginga Nagareboshi Gin (Anime) add

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If you ask me for my generation Ginga: Nagaberoshi Gin was a phenomenon. If you ask anyone who is around their thirties about Gin they usually have some memories about it. Even those who do not watch anime at all
and that is because there were those five VHS-cassettes to blame. In my country (Finland) the most brutal and bloody scenes were censored (like the decapitation) and the anime was put together so that one episode lasted about hour and a half. I am not sure is this anime or manga very popular elsewhere but with the young finns this anime adaptation has a special place ... in our hearts. Even so two finnish bands: Children of Bodom and Whispered have covered the intro theme which is amazing and I never seem to get tired about it. You can find them in Youtube.

This anime is about dogs with human kinda intelligence. They do not start to "talk" until you watch few episodes. So far I've never seen an anime starring dogs and maybe that's why most of us here in Finland won't think this
is an anime at all in truth I found it out when I started to watch anime in my teens. We only think about the big round eyes don't we? I think this is a nice change and I really like the characters. There are many differend breeds and personas within the series. Gin is a young akita, John is a german shepherd, Ben is a great dane and I fell in love with each of them. And you can't never forget the Kai brothers.

I also really like the main villains which are the bears. This is a show about dogs versus bears and I think they establish it quite well. It's a faraway mountain place so the bears can roam freely. At first I thought that why do not they just take an army there and desolate the bears but I guess the government in this universe isn't interested in a small mountain town which seems plausible so it's up to Gin and his friends to overthrow the bears
and their ruler Akakabuto from the mountains. The story is mostly about gathering large enough army to challenge the bears.

The bears are huge and terrifying I remember I was scared of them when I was just a small boy. In fact I don't think they are bears they are more like a bear looking monsters or demons. The bears won't "talk" and I think that makes them even more terrifying. Sometimes less is more. And there are many unique bears as there are dogs within the series: Akakabuto is sort of a main villain and he has lost an eye and gone mad from the gunshot wound to his brains. Then I remember the bear with harpoons stuck on it's back who lived in a forsaken ship which had landed ashore.

The human characters are also quite good. Daisuke is a young enthustiastic boy and the owner of Gin. There are his mother and father but
they reprise minor roles. Gohei is an ancient hunter and Daisuke's grandfather. He is sort of obsessed with Akakabuto which is his Moby Dick. Sometimes Gohei seems as mad as Akakabuto and he trains his dogs with brutality. He hits them and makes them eat raw bear meat.
But then there are these moments of compassion which make him a better character. I remember I feared and respected him when I watched the anime in my childhood.

I really like the music even thou the sound quality is bad. This anime is almost 30 years old and it has lasted quite well. You could call this a vintage anime? I started to cry when I heard the sad theme and I do not mean I was moved and few tears dropped to my cheek. I like weeped for real. This just makes me so sad and I am not even sure why because the animation is plausible/downright ugly/recycled/stilled at some points
but there is so much emotion in many sad scenes at least for me. Maybe it's just nostalgia? The music is so memorable and every theme fits in to the action. I really enjoy the soundtrack. Especially the sad tunes. That's one of the reasons I start to cry when I watch this. For me some of the fight scenes are just epic even more than in a Lord of the Rings or a similar movie and this just features a dog fighting a bear. I can feel my inner manchild within when a battle begins and the music starts.

Really if I take the nostalgia glasses off I think the final score is somewhere between 8 or 9. Otherwise I might give this 10 out of 10. I try to be objective but with our generation of finns Ginga: Nagaberoshi Gin will forever be remembered. In the end the story is solid and the characters are good you kinda miss them when the series are over and that's usually a good sign. You have emotionally connected with them so that means they are believable. I could recommend this to you if you dislike anime or are just starting the hobby. Without the people as main cast it might get you over your prejudices about anime and see
it as an art form which has so many ways and styles and stories to express itself.

Somethings are outright silly: the dogs have some kind of super powers. They lift giants rocks, use special attacks, use the wind to traverse big cliffs and so on.

But all in all a great classic anime for me!

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Mar 2, 2014

Shinseiki Evangelion (Anime) add

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I recently watched this series a second time. I watched this back in my high school days and oh boy I had mixed feelings about it. I stumbled upon it accidentally at late night when a local channel was airing Neon Genesis Evangelion. I missed an episode here and there and I was constantly feeling disgusted about the series. I felt it was repulsing yet I always came back and wanted to know more about it. This was the feeling I was left when I watched the anime first time in my life. I did not want to watch it and yet I wanted to ... watch it.

Now I have re-watched this controversial anime. I can be almost sure that you will love it or hate it, some of you might feel bored because the anime has quite slow pace. By this I mean that it's not slow paced in its story telling but I found the setting quite moody and slow like a song from a doom metal band like I was watching a dream and I feel this anime can also feel surreal .

I really like the story and the setting. I am huge fan of sience fiction and this anime can throw in religious elements and still have the scifi jargon mumbo jumbo which I always like to hear. It does not feel forced but a part of it. I'd like to even say that Neon Genesis Evangelion's world is a mix of religious and science fiction aspects. In fact it reminds me of a Dan Simmon’s book Hyperion but I dare not to talk about it more because I would need a book to cover it if I start to compare NGE (Neon Genesis Evangelion) with other pieces of art and at the same trying to write a review about it.

I was sucked in to the experience and in fact I watched the series in a few days marathon. This is a usually a point which makes a good experience for me you can’t just stop watching to the point it’s almost harmful. Some point I realized that the clock was 6:00 am and I overslept waking up at 2:00 pm. Maybe you will be hooked? Or you throw the anime over your shoulder after two episodes.

So the art is quite nice it’s almost vintage as been told in other reviews and the age of the anime shows but this is not a bad thing for me. The action scenes are really well made I can see that special care was taken in to them: they are fluid and an enjoyment to watch. But the main problem is that the action seems to fall short. I felt the villain was destroyed in one hit so you just got a small taste of the cake. I would have loved to see more epic long shifting battles but I guess they didn’t have the resources to do that.

Sadly there are many almost laughable moments when you are only shown a still image for couple of minutes. At first you could say this is an artistic solution which at first I thought it was. The still and anemic points integrate well with the slow pace and mood I mentioned earlier but the threshold is crossed just by a bit and you start to think that is there something wrong? Why the image is frozen? So in a way you can think that these moments are there to amplify the feeling of NGE: the gloomy mood which shadows everything. The gore and violence is executed perfectly in my opinion it’s not there for the shock effect like in many other works of fictions: Hey he’s head exploded and now there’s blood and brain matter everywhere how cool is that? In truth I felt disgusted when the gore was finally shown. Those moments are rare and very powerful they are not here just for the sake of violence.

I really like the EVAs which are the mechas of this anime. They are slender and beautiful they seem like humans to me. I usually think mechas as bulky and buffed war machines. EVAs are colorful and I really love their design for me they are very memorable and unique. But with EVAs you could say that they are “more than meets the eye” if you keep watching the anime which makes them even more bizarre and to the point again very repulsive.

Apart from the great and catchy theme in the beginning of an episode I can’t say anything from the music. The theme is on my top anime openings of all time but the rest of the music did not seem to exist for me sure I realized there was music but it sounded boring and dull so I did not even try to listen to them. There is a music for an intense moment and when there is danger but they don’t hit your balls like the opening theme. I must say the howling of the Unit 01 was dreadful it sounded like a trapped and tortured being like it should and I almost did not want to hear it and this was the part of the repulsiveness that I had when I was watching the anime. I felt sad and terrified when I heard the screaming and the howling.

This review is just expanding and while I am writing this I really feel I need to publish a book to cover everything I have to say. So about the characters: they are very deep. At first I hated one character but when the story unfolded I even felt sympathy for him. There are many sides to the characters and I feel they are realistic. Many have opinion about the main hero that’s he is an annoying sissy and a crybaby. Well to be honest I would cry and scream if I had to pilot a giant robot and fight monsters and experience pain and violence every day. Maybe these opinions are there because that we don’t want to see a weak hero in fiction. We want to be like the hero and we want to be strong and brave and we want to identify with the hero. But NGE can show how we people truly are: We as humans are flawed and most of us all really broken and all humans have their issues and negative sides. That’s why we have fiction so we can be somebody else but NGE does not give you that chance it tries to be realistic when it comes to characters. The creator’s mental state can be seen in characters and in fact I feel this anime resonates with my own depression and suicidal thoughts and at some points I felt even more anxious when I kept watching. I think that’s the charm of this anime because it reminds me of myself even though that side is not a pleasant side to see.

So in the end I feel this is an anime everyone should watch just for the sake of it. For the same reason we have Mona Lisa and people tend to go and watch it in Louvre you should watch this anime. I’ve tried to keep talking people to watch this because I would like to talk about it. I assume people are still after over ten years trying to make sense to it and speculating endlessly but that is watch makes a great experience for me. The enjoyment does not end after you have watched, read or played something: you want to talk and share your thoughts about it. In fact you don’t know how not to talk about it constantly. I almost gave this anime 10 out of 10 but because of technical execution in sound and animation and objectivity I lowered the score to 9. If this anime had the visuals of Hellsing Ultimate series or Vampire Hunter D: Blood Lust and memorable soundtrack I think this anime should be worshipped as a unique masterpiece: a pinnacle of great work of fiction.

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Feb 24, 2014

Sword Art Online (Anime) add

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This is my first review and english is not my native language so bear with me I try to do my best. :)

I think this anime had so much potential and for me the setting was unique. It felt like the movie The Matrix: for the first half of being interesting and raising philosophical questions and thoughts which I would have loved to see be expanded more when the series progressed but after the first half it was withered down to an even more generic action anime. I really hoped that this anime could have been so much better, deep and epic if they would ... have delved in to it.

I would have liked to know more about the world and I hoped they would have slowed the pace to go deep in to the universe and explain the laws and rules. At some point I was not sure that if I was missing an episode here and there. For characters you assume first that this character will be a relevant to the plot but they are usually forgotten completely after they are introduced by this I mean excluding the two main characters: male and female lead. It is a shame that even they are so flat and there is little progression and once you assume how they are I am pretty sure you will see they will stay that way forever. The main hero is almost a perfect in every way if he is angry it's because he fights for those he loves etc. it's so dull and boring.

The best part was when they took a break from all the action and started to live in a world where they are stuck and at that point it reminded me of "slice of life" styled animes like Clannad. The action was indeed quite good and sometimes I felt this awesome shivering when I watched the battles.

I really enjoyed the two main themes I think they will be in my top anime themes from now on. I really like to listen to them and I was always looking forward for the opening to begin because it set me in the right mood.

The animation is decent I quess at first characters looked too childlike for my likings but I got over it and in fact I fell in love with the main female hero! The animation gets better in action scenes but tends to be sluggish and lazy when they are not fighting. For example: When they fly it annoyed me that they did not flap their fairy wings, they were static. But maybe that's how the world of SAO is but I felt it was a lazy solution.

Long story short I think you should watch this anime and quit watching it at episode 15 it's a good point to end the series even if you don't watch all of it. You can assume lots of things but I think there is enough closure to move on because the last half left a bitter taste in my mouth. In terms of score there were points in the first half that I would easily give this anime 9 out of 10 but after barely completing it the number went down and down. I almost said to myself "this is rubbish how I can watch this?" but then I remembered those good and memorable moments from the first half. Indeed they should have used all the 25 episodes for the first story arc now everything feels so rushed. I was really looking forward for the villain. He seemed so interesting and in the end I did not understand his motives at all. I can almost see a big trollface when saw him trying to explain his motives. Well the show was in a hurry all the time so I quess the villain which also had so much potential had to be rushed and they introduced another main villain which I found very annoying. I almost hoped that someone will break the fourth wall and throw rotten tomatoes at him and then boo him out of the stage.

So far I have only bashed this anime but I watched it and I think that there has to be something good in it which keeps me going and interested and engulfed in the story. I would really like to say this is a very good anime but I feel so disappointed. If you want to see a generic and easy action anime with not so much character development I think this will do nicely just don't wish or wait too much from it.

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