Samurai Jack (Season 5) (2017)

Writer/Director: Genndy Tartakovsky
Studio: Cartoon Network Studios

Completed viewing on 21/04/20

***SPOILERS***

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
7		6	7	7	6

The darker tone and adult focus of this final series gave it lots of promise, on which it mostly came good. It was also nice that they tried to target the same viewers who originally watched the show on CN as kids (without milking the nostalgia value completely dry). Lots of good, interesting storytelling and excellent animation but for every good moment it had, the series almost always had a disappointing low point to match it. It's a show that really knows its identity and plays to its strengths but is ultimately let down by a poorly balanced story.

The name of the game is quite clear for Genndy Tartakovsky: slow tempo, high tension. He's clearly very good at it. Through the whole show, there are these long, intense passages without dialogue, often focusing on peripheral, even menial mini-tasks. They achieve their objective perfectly without feeling like they're slowing things down. There are plenty of other great storytelling mechanisms, like the wolf and the incredibly deliberate widescreens and split screens. Tartakovsky's comedy is also probably underrated. I would maybe say there was one too many spirits/hallucinations. They already made their point. Also the script wasn't amazing.

The animation is straight up impressive. The style is very Tartakovsky and distinctly Samurai Jack. It has an almost South Park-like paper cut-out style. Despite this, they do an amazing job of creating very dynamic feeling shots, solid objects and really vibrant environments (the belly of the beast episode was gorgeous).

That's probably as dynamic a shot as you're ever likely to see with no object lighting/shading

On top of that, action scenes are sick (Jack vs. re-fried Ashi was too lit). There is a tasteful use of 'implied action' but there's plenty of straight up throwing hands. More importantly, this doesn't get lost in quick camera angle changes and poor timing (i.e. there are plenty of inbetweens). It's just good, direct directing - no hiding behind nothing. Given the style, the animaion punches well above its weight.

Sadly, the big let down was the story and balance is the thing they got wrong I think. For example, Old Man Jack was excellent but all the interesting things about him were cancelled out. He'd lost his sword and was haunted by this deathly samurai spirit. Great. But he gets the sword back and he defeats the spirit (while swordless) with a single slash. I did quite like the explanation of how he lost and re-found the sword but it would have been cooler to see who Jack becomes without it. How does he defeat Aku then? And the spirit was cool as fuck, we could definitely have had some explanation around that and this pact that it's implied Jack has entered into. Sticking with the old vs. new balance, Ashi was a great addition, so too were the Daughters of Aku. However Ashi basically ends up the hero. This is supposed to be the conclusion of Jack's epic journey. He should be the one to decide it, not someone who only joined in the last leg. Also they didn't actually defeat Aku, which is just classic disappointing story for me. Lastly, the balance between exploration/development and story was way off and it just made for poor pacing. How can they defeat Aku, go back to the past, meet everyone, plan a wedding, have Ashi die, then have the final scene all in the last 6 minutes? The final scene would have been far more powerful if Ashi had died during the final fight and maybe even an episode before the end.

Lastly, Characters. They're pretty good. Jack and Ashi are sweet, both have solid, sensible journeys through the series. The rest are colourful enough to keep things entertaining but nothing amazing. Scaramouche was mad fun. His, like pretty much all character designs in the series was really really great. Re-evil Ashi's design was brilliant too. They also did a really good job of making Aku actually feel powerful like a big bad should (hence the disappointment of not actually beating that version of him). End of the day, it's a small, simple cast that serves its purpose. Last thing, what the fuck was the need for the Scotsman to be so overtly sexist and do so completely unprovoked? That wasn't great.

So the show has plenty of value beyond the nostalgia but doesn't give the closure it should. Really paid its respect to the original series (even spent an entire episode literally validating it, which was a nice touch) but didn't conclude it correctly in my opinion. Maybe I would have enjoyed the last episode a bit more if I'd never seen Avengers Endgame as well*.

The Breadwinner (2017)

Writer/Director: Nora Twomeu
Studio(s): Aircraft Pictures, Melusine Productions, Cartoon Saloon

Watched viewing on 16/04/20

***SPOILERS***

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
5		5	6	6	6

Straight up, I didn't like The Breadwinner.

Just felt like a typical western feminist trying to show the world how bad and backwards other parts of the world are. The important thing is that (apparently) Afghan people really liked the film, so it's not really for me to say. But at the end of the day, I didn't enjoy the film all that much and this blog is just my personal thoughts.

I didn't like that the film was in English with VAs who, to me, sounded like English was their first language. It sounded like they even tried to sound more Afghan, which was just a bit odd. Also the film doesn't make it clear enough what year the story is set in and what the situation in Afghanistan is at the time (the very vague 'Hindu Kush mountains' description just isn't sufficient). I feel like this means it does more harm than good; it tells selective truths (whole truths, don't get it twisted) but could be interpreted as suggesting that Kabul in 2017 is what you're seeing in the film. It isn't. You're seeing Kabul from 20 years ago, under Taliban rule.

The story was quite bland. I totally appreciate that it's probably largely true but this doesn't make it entertaining to viewers like me (again, it's not for us anyway). There's little impact/consequence for actions by characters. There was no moment of true gratification for Parwana when she becomes the breadwinner. Ultimately, our quite likeable main character is even a bit of a passenger to the end goal of the film. Also they made a pretty big deal about the witch's 3 items, of which the boy in the story only ever gets 2. I also just have a problem with people telling other people's stories for them.
The film got lots of praise for its 'attention to detail', but I caught a few things I thought it got wrong: not saying Bismillah before eating, reading from left to right and speaking while praying. My knowledge of Islam and Arabic (on which Pashto and Dari are based) is obviously only surface-level but these didn't seem right to me.

The art style was actually really nice, but the animation was a bit disappointing in places. A lot of CG vehicles. The storytelling was nice but not anything revolutionary. And the characters were far too simple (maybe except for the mother).

Devilman Crybaby (2018)

Writer: Ichiro Okouchi (based on Go Nagai's 'Devilman', 1972)
Director: Masaaki Yuasa
Studio: Science Saru

Completed viewing on 10/04/20

***SPOILERS***

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
6		6	7	6	6

If there's no consequence, you have no plot.

Devilman Crybaby (DC) is clever and interesting and creates an intriguing story for 9 out of 10 of its episodes. Then, as so many TV series do, it has all hell break lose at the end, killing everyone. What's so disappointing about this is that all of the characters you've been following, all the relationship they formed and all the questions you have as a viewer essentially just get chucked in the bin. Then spat on. If everybody dies, what was the point of any of the decsisions they made on screen?

Again, the first 9 episodes are interesting and got me anxious to find out what happens next. The way the story sets itself up though, it suggests it's all going to come together in some kind of clever climax. As mentioned, it doesn't and everybody dies. I understand that the Devilman comic was more about its message than writing the perfect story and the show wanted to honor the source material - I respect that. But If there are things that could be improved in the 46 years between releases, they should be addressed. Maybe the writers even thought there wasn't anything that needed improving but to me and my taste, it didn't really work. Beyond that, I also think it's possible to send through a strong message whilst still having a coherent, conclusive plot - 'Get Out' is the perfect example of this. Also using parts of the bible for your story is a bit of a cop-out and hypersexualisation as part of messaging is kinda wack.

The storytelling is quite strong in DC. This kinda has to be considered alongside the art style because the two are heavily linked. The art style is completely stripped back only the lines and shadows that are absolutely necessary are drawn. This completely echoes the directing: you are shown exactly what is needed to tell this story and very little else. It's very direct and makes no mistakes; if someone's crying, you're getting a close-up of the eye, seeing it fill up with tears, watching the tear run down their face, then getting a final confirmation by seeing the teardrops fall onto the floor. This was sometimes to the show's detriment though, with things being way too obvious. E.g. Ryo's lift having the number 666 in bold, dark font against a white background. That's too much. The same can be said for the art style. Some frames were legitly stunning, using simple, clean line work and soft, light colours. Like this one:

Although I prefer more realistic artwork, I really did appreciate that DC (and Yuasa in general as I understand) has a distinct art style and really sets itself apart with exaggerated proportions and character designs. However, in certain places, this led to straight-up bad art. There's probably some CalArts professor who says that all styles are valid and there's no such thing as bad art but just look at the body proportions and angles on Ryo in this shot:

The artwork is inconsitent and the animation follows suit. It's very simple in most places and that works just fine but it's weird, jittery and honestly incoherent in others. Again I appreciate this is a stylistic choice but that doesn't mean I have to like it. The few combat sequences DC does have are actually pretty great although some are in almost complete darkness, with quick jumps between frames and minimal inbetweening. Also, in ironic contrast to the film 'Akira', they opted out of drawing very detailed, gory demons. For a show all about disgusting demons eating people, that's a real letdown. One last point on art/animation, I have to mention my least favourite scene in the entire series. The below screenshots were taken around 10 seconds apart from each other in a very serious, emotional scene. That just shows how weird and inconsitent the art is and how it does actually ruin the storytelling in certain places.

Lastly, the characters. The main characters in DC are kinda interesting but everyone else is quite 2-dimensional. Akira and Miki really show their human sides but these aren't anythig outside of well-established tropes. The misfit rappers were the actual highlight for me, showing a great range of emotions and character development that was possibly better than any of the main characters'. You could argue that it's unfair to criticise these semi-flat characters, because the comic was written in 1972, before these character archetypes were so well established but again, this is a modern re-telling. Re-tell it.

Overall, 6/10 disappointingly.

Just remembered, the music is amazing. Atmospheric, emotional, exciting - really excellent.

Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005)

Creators: Michael Dante DiMartino, Brian Kanietzko
Various writers and directors
Studio: JM Animation, DR Movie, MOI Animation

Completed viewing on 04/04/20

***SPOILERS***

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
7		6	6	7	8

I enjoyed the hell out of Avatar. There was a whole lot it got wrong in my opinion but I could never say I didn't have mad fun watching it and even get a bit gassed at certain parts like I actually was a 10-year-old watching it for the first time. The ending disappointed me so much that I had to write an entirely separate rant about it. However I am pretty particular in what I like, so the fact the ending didn't do it for me really shouldn't detract from what a great watch Avatar is.

One thing that's quite nice about A:TLA is that it's a good length. Definitely could have been streamlined a bit but the creators used their 3 seasons (61 episodes) pretty well, really growing and developing some of their characters, building an immersive, intricate world and even creating an elaborate history for it. You feel like you're really on a whole journey when you watch it. They also got to have a whole bunch of fun with character designs as characters and situations changed, like when the MCs have to wear Fire Nation outfits for most of season 3. It was like a timeskip but you actually went through it with them, so it felt even more rewarding.

The characters are the best thing about the series. They have strong, clear personalities but they're also visibly moulded by the events and experiences of their journies. The series' major characters are also suprisingly multi-dimensional from the start. My favourite character by some distance was Toph. She's a tough as fuck girl with a disability but she isn't a token - the writers didn't use these things in place of her personality but instead used them to add to it and make her genuinely interesting. More importantly though, she's just very well written. She brings contrasting attitudes and opinions to the group, which creates complications and conflicts. She's a master earth bender but she can only fight when her feet are touching the ground. She's powerful and she's tough but she also has flaws and limitations. She serves as a fantastic example of how to write diversity properly - it never ever feels forced. Avatar also blurred the line between goodies and baddies with Iroh and Zuko but showed they did not forget where that line was with the introduction of Azula - three truly great characters, who play their respective roles perfectly. Zuko's character arc is also sensational. Lastly, it does sadly need to be said that Sokka was really under-developed throughout. I didn't feel like he suited almost exclusively playing the 'comic relief' role and as one of the main characters, he should have got much more than just romances and his 1 pity episode of actual story.

Character design is also great. I say Azula, you instantly imagine her two little side-bangs; Katara, 'hair loopies'; Aang, arrow; Sokka, that terrible middle bun. The best example of this is Zuko's design, which changes as he does - they even include plot points to drive these changes. He becomes more likeable as the series progresses and his hair and outfits change to reflect that, however his original season 1 design, whilst definitely unlikeable, is still very appealing and distinctive. They did a top job.

This leads into another great aspect of the show, which is its animation. Again, this isn't perfect - the CG tanks and airships are a bit disappointing to see and there are all the hallmarks of a cartoon produced to a deadline - but the general art and animation are solid and the action sequences are absolutely phenomenal. Watching the show, you get the impression that including at least one proper fight in each episode was something the producers agreed right from the jump. I also appreciate how much thought and consideration went into every character's fighting style - even for characters who only appeared once. The show's artists and animators did a good job creating great drawings and poses without burdening themselves with too much detail and light/shadow. One thing I definitely didn't like however was the use of anime styled faces (particularly eyes and noses). In my opinion, these felt borrowed and didn't really agree with the rest of the art style. Sadly the borrowing didn't stop there.

My biggest criticism of the series is definitely its heavy use of Asian symbolism, cultures, belief systems, names, architecture etc. I think it was a cheap way of making the show seem cooler and a shortcut in terms of world building. It was also just pretty cringey to watch an american TV show use the Japanese symbols for the elements and have characters named things like Zhao and Chan. The creators showed that they were capable of coming up with great original material when they chose to, so it's a shame they took this route.

The storyline for the most part was nice and straightforward, whilst still providing depth and complications. Season 1 was a bit 'monster of the week' but they found a good balance between the main story and side plots as the series went on. The introduction of loads of unimportant side characters would have been a little bit annoying by itself but I think they actually made this worse by having some of them return randomly for one or two episodes later on. I won't get into my dislike of the series' ending but ultimately, I was very disappointed by the fact that a lot of the interesting plotlines aren't really concluded very well. The worst example being the main overarching storyline not being honoured at all: Aang doesn't master the 4 elements. If the series had had a running theme about how your destiny isn't what you think it is, that would make sense but the show's actual theme is pretty much the opposite. I also felt like there were definitely issues with pacing and inconsistent ideas between different writers and directors (both of which were particularly noticeable in season 3).Still not a bad plot though.

So in conclusion, the show's a whole ot of fun and its problems can be glossed over because of that. I'd recommend to anyone who grew up on DBZ, Pokémon, Digimon, Beyblade etc. 7/10

Other random thoughts: the Earth Kingdom WWE episode is fucking brilliant; I liked how Toph's addition to the group almost made it feel like a D&D party; after taking inspiration from a lot of anime and manga, the show did pay its respects to a lot of them, which was cool - they even did Star Wars; I know they did a lot of research on fighting styles etc., so they get credit for that but coming back to the Asia thing, they really could have looked at world martial arts.

Justice League: War (2014)

Writer: Heath Corson
Director: Jay Oliva
Studio: Moi Animation

Watched on 05/04/20

***SPOILERS***

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
7		6	7	7	7

Firstly I'll just say to anyone who might read this, I'm not a comic book fan at all. I haven't watched the old Justice League cartoons, seen the DCEU films nor read any of the comics. All I had going into this was the Christopher Nolan trilogy, Joker, a bit of Teen Titans and some basic, surface-level superhero knowledge. Despite this, maybe even because of this, I really did quite enjoy this film.

The plot is as straightforward as it gets. Bad guy wants to take over earth, heroes unite to save it; dead simple but that's absolutely fine. It doesn't try to be too complicated, meaning it also doesn't raise any questions it can't answer (but there's only so much credit you can give for that).The writing itself however is really good and the dialogue is definitely funny and entertaining. The film is only 75 minutes long though, so maybe they could have done with 15 more minutes of fleshing some things out but the pacing was fine for what the film wants to achieve.

In terms of storytelling, there's only so much you can do with so little story to tell. There are some really good instances of visually communicating information, like Dr. Stone hitting 'Ignore' on the notification for 'Victor's Football Game' - even just writing that sentence out tells you everything you need to know. Most of these moments are towards the beginning of the film though, with all the interesting character stuff out of the way about halfway through. From that point on, it's basically all smoke, which has a lot of great staging, to the point it actually feels a bit like reading a comic. Circular smoke clouds, gaps between buildings and skylines in contrasting colours all make sure your eye is directed to exactly where it needs to be.

Animation is good in parts and great in others (all the fighting is sick), however still has the shortcomings of most modern commercial animation. There's lot of standing still, speech is a bit stiff at times and the standard of the art and poses slip occasionally too. There's also a bit of an over reliance on CGI as well, for example with the towers Darkseid summons, despite the artists clearly showing that they could have easily drawn everything by hand. The art style was great, with muscles and proportions just exggerated enough. Faces were a little bit anime-ish but close-ups were much more detailed, which gave the film (and this universe I guess) a bit more of an identity.

The characters are interesting and generally likeable but given this is a 'soft reboot' film, we don't get to dive too deep into most of them. The ones we do get to see more of are done pretty well, particularly Cyborg. More importantly, what they did absolutely nail is character design. Just compare the designs below from this film (top) to the ones from 'Justice League: Doom' from just 2 years before (bottom). So much fresher and undeniably cooler. Coupled with this is what I saw as a slight shake-up of the characters' personalities (although I'm quite likely wrong). For example, is Superman always such an asshole? Because it worked damn well here. What they failed to do in rebooting however was add a bit of diversity - yes, in representation terms but also in judgement, morals, motivations etc. to make dynamics within the group more interesting. Also, there's one female member of the league and in these 75 minutes, she gets told she dresses like a whore and Green Lantern calls 'dibs' on her. Surely DC can do much better than that.

The other thing this film handles well is power levels. The early fight between Batman & Green Lantern and Superman just lets you know how much more powerful Superman is compared to everyone else (which as a non-fan makes perfect sense to me). They then do a good job of showing how crazy powerful Darkseid is, also not holding back on the physical damage he does to the other characters. It was also a good idea to remove Superman from the situation to unbalance the fight a little bit.

All in alll, I have to say I enjoyed that far more than pretty much any other Comic Book movie I've seen. This film also sets up a new, separate universe of its own, so I may well be coming back for the sequels.

Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005) ENDING Review

Considering how much fun Avatar was to watch, its ending was really disappointing.

The events and fights were an incredibly underwhelming conclusion to what was a 3-year journey. We see random little bits of the liberation of Ba Sing Se but no major obstacle being overcome, Sokka and Toph (two of the biggest characters in the series) end up being in a small operation to take down about 10 warships instead of commanding an army or having a respective major fight of their own and after all the build-up to it, the fight between Ozai and Aang is just bland and unfulfilling. Credit where it's due, Azula vs Zuko was a good, satisfying fight, capping off a very solid character arc for Zuko, plus giving Katara a major role to play. Even Azula's rapid descent into madness worked quite well (even if there was no other real point to Mai and Ty Lee switching sides) but other than that, the ending was pretty poor. This is compounded by the fact that the siege on the Day of Black Sun had a much better set-up as a finale but that's another conversation.

First and most importantly, the fight between Aang and Ozai. For a start, the action was mostly shown in wide shots and we didn't really get to see much of either character's fighting style. Combat sequences are one of the show's main strengths from the beginning, so this was doubly disappointing. Next, there wasn't really a point at which both fighters went all out at each other, as equals. First Ozai was far superior, then Aang suddenly entered the Avatar state, becoming the far superior one, and then it was over. The inferior opponent in both phases spent the whole time running away, so there really wasn't much actual fighting at all. The fight wasn't just unsatisfying but it also didn't conclude any of the plotlines relating to it very well. Firstly, Aang's big advantage was the use of the Avatar State, which he made a conscious decision to be unable to use in season 2, so why was he suddenly able to access it? Next, Aang's solution to stopping Ozai was to bend his energy. This is something that is never mentioned nor even hinted at throughout the previous 60 episodes and the knowledge of how to do it is given to him literally the episode before, by a new character who apparently isn't part of the show's 2 only known worlds. The solution should have been something that was a running theme throughout the show, and more importantly something that was presented on screen (e.g. Roku's flashback which showed that anyone could be good or evil). Essentially this also meant that the solution wasn't mastering all 4 elements, the entire premise of the show, but instead the Avatar's innate power, meaning the past 3 years of training were basically pointless. Further to this, from a plot perspective, Aang hadn't even mastered all 4 elements before the final fight! Why hadn't he when the writers had 20 episodes for each one? Again, that's the series' entire concept and they essentially just binned it.

Pointless journeys are pretty much the theme throughout the ending. Again, Zuko's story is the one that stands out as well-resolved with a clear beginning, middle and (very satisfying) end, with backstory and motivations for it all. Full credit should go to the writers for that but every other character's arc basically gets trashed.
What was the point of Toph's story? She left home to experience freedom and adventure, she went on this incredible journey and then what? What was the outcome? Did she return home with a new resolve or outlook?
Sokka was supposed to be a strong warrior and brave leader and his feelings of failure on the Day of Black Sun were a perfect set-up for him to put things right in the final battle. His involvement however wasn't in a leadership capacity at all. As mentioned, he instead takes out about 10 war ships, with a small operation, nowhere near any of the major action. Did he learn anything from this? Did he achieve his goals?
Even Katara, who set out simply to become more than a kid from a small village, got no resolution. She became a hell of a water bender, but for what purpose? Does she now usher in the next generation of water benders in the Southern Water Tribe? Does she decide she needs to be a person of the world and keep exploring it?
All of these characters' journeys were great throughout the series, they just really weren't concluded at all by the finale. The final scene of the gang in Ba Sing Se just doesn't cut it. Half of these plotlines could have been capped off quite nicely with a simple ending scene for the respective character, showing what their 'happily ever after' looked like (viewers shouldn't have to read comics or watch other series for that closure, again this should all be on screen). For some absurd reason, yet again it's only Zuko who gets this solo ending scene and clearly later gets to go and answer more of his own unresolved questions.

Beyond this, there were also plenty of random story elements that were introduced in season 3, that went absolutely nowhere. These stand out because addressing the main storylines would have made the ending good but addressing these smaller points would have made it amazing. That said, these are probably more of a criticism of season 3 and the show overall than just the finale.
For me, these are: Toph having romantic feelings for Sokka, Katara learning to blood bend, Aang consulting 4 (FOUR!) past Avatars for advice that helped in no way whatsoever, Sokka's new sword that he literally hurls away and never sees again, Combustion Man (who was perfectly set up as Zuko's way of proving himself trustworthy but then kills himself thanks to Sokka) and the kids (Haru, Teo and the Duke) escaping the raid only to crawl through a hole and never be seen again.

The cherry on top of it all, the shoe-horned and poorly-executed romance of Aang and Katara finally comes to its apex (and also made for a weak af final shot in my opinion). Aang liking Katara but her not liking him back would have made much more sense given everything we'd seen throughout from both characters. It also would have made a much better ending, not just because of the incredibly tired trope of the hero ending up with the main female character but because it would have also completed Aang's journey. Not only is he the Avatar (responsible for the whole world) but also a monk. Letting go of his feelings for Katara would finally have aligned both of those elements of his character and allowed him to live freely and unnatached from any one person (not to mention explain his miraculous use of the Avatar State). But this is a kids' show and I'm a 25-year-old who just wrote about 1,000 words about it.

As I said, the ending is disappointing but I still had fun watching the show. I'm now really intrigued to watch the Legend of Korra. Hopefully they worked out some of these faults and hopefully I can get a bit more closure for some of these characters.