For being recommended in almost every obscure-yet-good anime list on Sup Forums and elsewhere, it doesn't seem that great. Aside from Popo the main/focal characters feel less fleshed out than the episodic ones, especially Vanilla, whose character arc is just flipping a switch from cop to madly in love cop. His death carried no impact for me. The show completely falls apart nearing the end with sloppy writing like the rapid fire double crossing with the Warp clones which was a schizophrenic flip of mood and a fucking retarded directorial choice, to me the worst offender. The series overall feels like it tried to cram too many themes and ideas into 12 episodes. The first half works as a kind of Psychonauts exploration of people's heads but from ep. 7 onwards it seems like a mess.
Maybe i expected too much going in.
Chroniko a best
For being recommended in almost every obscure-yet-good anime list on Sup Forums and elsewhere...
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I thought they were going to explore more planets, but instead they quickly rushed an ending.
Even if there's some legit criticism to be made about it, I think it is a waste of time to make them.
Some directors like Yuasa are so unique and precious that you should cherish them and everything they produce. (Of course you couldn't have known that with just Mindgame and Kemonozume, but he's been consistently great for 10 years now)
Not saying that everyone should like it, because of course being niche is part of that uniqueness, it's an acquired taste.
It was just okay, the ending theme was very well done though
>Even if there's some legit criticism to be made about it, I think it is a waste of time to make them.
I see this a lot with Yuasa's stuff.
I really just wanted to see more planets, I wanted to meet more hopelessly fragile but endearing characters and see more amazing scenes like the old lady's death on the lighthouse world. Is that so much to ask for?
It kind of seems to be a Japanese thing anyway-- seinen has to be deep. It can't just be casually thought-provoking... it has to follow this almost ceremonial structure. It must have a certain kind drama, it has to have a certain density of *symbolism*, it has to be just like the greatest of pretentious arthouse stuff, or it's just isn't good seinen.
Vanilla didn't have much depth, he wasn't cute, he wasn't even that nice unless he thought something was in it for himself. He isn't supposed to be likable, but something about him just had me wishing he could be redeemed somehow. He was so pathetic, but Yuasa managed to make that endearing somehow.
He was a product of the world he lived in. He'd had a hard life, and it did exactly what you'd expect it'd do to someone like that. In the end, he just wanted the things anyone wants, and he took (or tried to take) the steps his society implicitly condoned to get them.
He was my favorite character.
>Chroniko a best
I liked the tomboyish, slouching Chronaiba better DESU.
Vanilla is moé
He sure is.
I think the sadness of his death comes more from the fact that he gave up his life for the girl he loved, even if it was shallow.
I liked how Kaiba showed characters that seem like terrible people at first, and then show them in a more sympathetic light later on, it helps to make them seem more real. Best example is obviously Chronico's aunt, which was a top tier display of the horrible effect that memory editing can have on people.
>I think the sadness of his death comes more from the fact that he gave up his life for the girl he loved, even if it was shallow.
It's that he gave up his life for something that was never even there. He was chasing an illusion. And he probably knew as well that Chroniko was way out of his league, and that she(he) was using him.
That's what was so sad about his death. Not just that he died, but that his own life had so little value he decided to throw it all away on what amounted to a gesture.
>the horrible effect that memory editing can have on people
You have to be able to grieve for your losses, or you go through life not understanding until it's way too late what you truly value.
Congratulations, you just discovered how pretentious and overrated Yuasa is.
> And he probably knew as well that Chroniko was way out of his league, and that she(he) was using him.
Yeah, when he pulls back from kissing her and see's her shocked and unhappy face, I think he realized that his whole romance thing with her was completely unrequited.
>shocked and unhappy face
Which was similar to the face i was making while watching the scene, because Yuasa failed to build an investment in the character.
Well that was you then, user, no one's forcing you to like the show, but for me, and basically everyone ive talked to about Kaiba thought that Vanilla's death was sad, so it seems to me yuasa did a pretty good job making me invested in the character, even though he wasn't a good person.
Kind of peaked at Chronico's Boots.
I remember how weird and different the show was to most, since Yuasa wasn't too well known at that time. Expectations were low and only that one tripfag was posting the preview images.
I think that Kaiba is incredibly boring to be honest. I watched until the 5 episode and struggled to pay attention for most of the time. The only episode that I liked was the third, but as a whole the characters, dialogues, narrative and episodic stories simply don't hook me.
>Pretentious
I wouldn't even call Yuasa pretentious, his stories and themes are very simple and standard actually. It's just that his shows attract pretentious faggots, mostly because of their unusual artstyles
This, 99% of people calling it pretentious only say so because of the abstract artstyles.
shouldve been 24 eps. Would've allowed for more planets and a more coherent/less hasty ending.
>Chroniko a best
Sometimes I rewatch this scene and tear up a little.
God, that ending was haunting as fuck, the guilt she must have felt is insane.
She knew that the piano once gave her joy, but she forgot the reason why. She'd had herself cleansed of the memories of the times she spent playing it with the people she loved, because she couldn't bear to grieve when she lost them. She remembered something, though, an impression, a memory that the memory deletion process missed. There were once THREE chairs by her piano. That was all it took, and in an instant it all came back to her, hit her like a brick wall.
She never allowed herself to grieve for her sister, so as a side-effect she never learned to value her niece Chroniko-- or she devalued what memories she already had. So when a shady technician came to her offering a significant sum of money for that supple young body her niece possessed, it was that much easier to sell her away.
It wasn't until after she had made that horrible decision that she remembered what her family had meant to her.
This is why you mustn't shirk away from, bury or forget your sadness. It makes you a better person, it teaches you what really matters to you.
this is the type of pretentious shit that gets kaiba so much criticism
Okay.
Yeah, I really loved kaiba for the exposition it did in the first half of the series, but after that it becomes a lot less interesting.
Same here, though I have to admit I always had this problem with Yuasa. The only show I truly ended up loving, that he was involved with, was Ping Pong.
But I had read the manga and loved it before, so I am never sure how to think of him.
Unique works, but always a total miss for me
Yuasa can't write TV anime at all.
Both Kemonozume and Kaiba are horribly flawed shows that fall apart almost completely by the end, and his Space Dandy episode wasn't particularly memorable
Doesn't stop me from enjoying his stuff though, and I'm definitely looking forward to his hipster version of Ponyo
> His space dandy episode wasn't particularly memorable
Isn't his episode one of the most popular and talked about?
>horribly flawed shows that fall apart almost completely by the end
That's kind of a stretch user, you make it sound like they end in an absolute horrible way.
Sure, the story towards the end of both weren't that strong, but BOTH of those shows are far superior to anything airing this season, and for that matter the past couple seasons.
this, the ending was a letdown, but it wasn't catastrophic or anything.
I hate how some anons seem to hold a grudge against people who actually put effort in their posts.
I much prefer reading what he said than memes being repeated over and over again and people trying to fit in at all times.
yuasa's episode is the fish planet one, not the planet fishing one
>BOTH of those shows are far superior to anything airing this season, and for that matter the past couple seasons
That's kind of a stretch considering neither of them did anything better than Mob Psycho and both ACCA and LWA are pretty servicable at the moment
i really wish this had happened. the rushed ending was the worst part, that being said its rawness and unpredictability really made me fall in love with it. 10/10, shoot me
He's not calling it pretentious because the user wrote a long post, he's calling it pretentious because the post is, in fact, pretentious. The whole sequence with the aunt is just a subversion on the viewer's expectations. 'We'll have the aunt seem like a heartless bitch at first, but we'll later reveal that she's been through shit too and is having a hard time coping.'
It's a competent scene, though the subject matter is pretty basic. That user is acting like it's some powerful/deep message which is why his post is pretentious.
this was one of my favorite individual episodes of anime. such a great moment, i almost teared up, and i dont usually do that.
I think Tatami Galaxy is his weakest show, followed by Kaiba. The amount of hype for Tatami Galaxy that Sup Forums likes to spread around probably makes you think Kaiba must also be a masterpiece, but it's just good, and even then, more comfy than great. Meanwhile, Kemonozume is a masterpiece and probably the single greatest cartoon I've seen, if only for being able to evoke such a mood where it constantly feels like I just finished watching it drunk and could only keep along five seconds too late with every scene. Utterly unique in every way. No idea why Sup Forums doesn't seem to care.
I don't think you can criticize Kaiba well without considering how ambitious it was at the time. This was near peak LN adaption time, and at the height of the Big 3 popularity. Soul Eater and Geass were also dominating the public eye. A fully realized story told within 12 episodes, where each episode mattered thematically, yet each was part of the greater whole, was beginning to seem quaint, and it certainly wasn't selling.
Kaiba came out at midnight so it was pretty under the radar in Japan, but it helps to watch it as a children's show - it's very evocative of old Tezuka anime, and helps to be watched like such.
so that makes the poster pretentious, not the show. The show isn't pretending to be any deeper than it is, nor is it trying to make it's themes look more complicated than they are.
> it helps to watch it as a children's show
Doesn't a woman explode while having wild sex with a clone of herself in the second episode? Not exactly kid material.
It's Japan - it happens.
It's an adult show, but the style/imagery are meant to evoke innocence. There's some dualism/juxtaposition/aesthetic stuff going on, obviously.
I haven't seen the show in a while, but I remember the Japanese was pretty simple too.
>Kaiba
>Children show
Top kek.
It deals with a bunch of themes that kids would find utterly boring and mostly adults or at least young adults would be able to relate. It deals with sex and violence in direct ways, but it doesn't have enough shock value for kids to like it. Actually, there's really nothing that makes Kaiba kids material unless you judge it solely by the artstyle.
> but the style/imagery are meant to evoke innocence.
Doesn't mean it can really be watched as a show for children, there's a fair amount of adult subject matter that makes that impossible.
I feel like I must have written that poorly - it's helpful to watch it as a distortion of a children's show. A fairy tale for adults of sorts.
If you just judge it as an "adult" show (seinen, edgy, pretentious, grimdark or whatever someone on Sup Forums would want to call it), it can be boring. But if you watch it as a show pulled from something you'd read as a kid in the 60s, it's a remarkable throwback while still remaining progressive enough to be interesting.
You two should really learn what your buzzwords mean before you use them. Pretentious is meant to poke fun at those people who draw out more meaning and importance than is present, usually through showy, "highly-intelligent" language.
user did none of that. Their post was literally explaining what occurred in the scene and how that plays into the larger theme of the entire show; "your memories make you who you are and to forget them is to lose a piece of yourself". The post is not pretentious, it's basic literary analysis. You know, the kinda stuff you would learn if you ever payed attention in high school.
> it's helpful to watch it as a distortion of a children's show.
yeah, that works better.
I love the anime but Neiro left me disappointed. As hyo hyo she is the best but after anticipating the truth about the girl whose picture Kaiba carries it was a pretty boring love story, it didn't captivate me nearly as much as all the little stories on the different planets.
Neither i nor the user who originally replied called the show pretentious, only the poster.
I think the author just got bored with the whole show towards the end