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CriticalOtaku [he/him]

@ CriticalOtaku @hexbear.net

Posts
11
Comments
98
Joined
6 yr. ago

  • Serial Experiments Lain really is that good

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  • Haibane Renmei was directed by the one of the key animators of Lain, and shares it's character designer. It's very good, if a bit slow and existential.

    Kino's Journey (2003) was also directed by Lain's director, it has a similar surreal feeling but I think I like it a bit better than Lain because it touches on things like politics and identity.

    Other posters have already given good recs (I'll vouch for Paranoia Agent and the rest of Satoshi Kon's work), but if you're willing to change the genre to fantasy Mushishi is really good and also contains that same kind of thoughtful mysterious vibes.

  • Frieren Vs demon.

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  • No you're not the only one.

    I wouldn't have minded if they were just purely ontologically evil- "They're from hell, they're antithetical to life" kinda deal like the curses in Jujutsu Kaisen. Make them explicitly supernatural and just roll with it because the story needs an uncomplicated villain- yeah ok, understandable.

    It's all the in-universe evo psych nonsense given as "world-building" that gives me the heebie-jeebies, especially in the way in which those justifications knowingly or unknowingly mirror real-life bigotries. Having a sapient fantasy race that cannot change their inherent nature due to biology, just so that the protagonists have a narrative excuse to blast them really doesn't sit right with me at all.

    Which is a shame because yeah, otherwise the show is actually pretty good, especially at exploring the breadth of human experience. So to have this weird blind-spot is baffling.

  • The best system ever

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  • One of my favourite shows is called Mawaru Penguindrum, by Kunihiko Ikuhara (the guy who did Revolutionary Girl Utena).

    One of the central bits of recurring symbolism in the show is something called the Child Broiler.

    I get so mad everytime I see some discussion somewhere going "BuT wHaT cOuLd iT MeAn?"

  • Fallout's TV adaptation is "way more" popular than Todd Howard expected, so the RPG series' devs have had to ensure "the games are ready for all the players who are coming into them"

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  • Ella Purnell and Walter Goggins are legit good actors and are pretty much carrying the show on their backs.

    The writing nails the vibe of the Fallout universe in the general sense, the problem is setting it on the west coast (where, y'know all the beloved Black Isle and Obsidian games are set). If they set it in Bethesda continuity locations on the east coast like Washington there would probably be fewer problems, since the show fits the tone of what Bethesda ended up doing anyway.

    Because yeah messing with the earlier games open-ended endings feels wrong and ends up introducing some weird themes that I don't think were intended.

    Edited: I got my american geography mixed up lol

  • Title

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  • In defense of the movie tho-

    I actually really like that they made Hammond this kindly ol' Grandpa rather than the mustache twirling capitalist villain of the book. To me, it sorta emphasizes that it's the system everything's operating under (capitalist extraction for-profit) that's doomed the park from the get-go, and even the best intentions of it's creators can't prevent that.

    I've seen critical interpretations of the flea circus dinner monologue as Spielberg speaking through the character, trying to reckon with his impact on the real world through his films and an attempt to reconcile his need to make art with the industry's commercial nature. Famously he was doing post-production of Schindler's List at the same time as filming JP, and apparently really going through it.

    I do agree with you that we probably could have done without the rest of the franchise, although in some perverse way they kinda reinforce this anti-capitalist theme almost every movie intentionally or not.

  • Quentin Tarantino Ranks His Top 20 Favorite Films Of 21st Century [list inside]

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  • It's also disappointing because this is the dude who basically made a fanfic about offing Hitler in the most gruesome, cathartic way possible.

  • Title

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  • How they find out the dinosaurs are breeding in the book is just the perfect

    encapsulation of "corporate solutions" colliding face first into reality.

  • Quentin Tarantino Ranks His Top 20 Favorite Films Of 21st Century [list inside]

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  • Hate to be the Um, Aksually guy but um, Battle Royale is a Japanese movie and Chocolate is Thai.

    They're also some of the handful of good movies on this list so please don't let me stop you from shitting on Mr. Foot Fetish's tastes over here (Black Hawk Down no. 1? Seriously?!?)

  • Should I watch Pluribus just to be ready to explain to my two friends who are watching it why it's anticommunist garbage?

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  • Yeah, Breaking Bad is probably my favourite American tv serial too, tho maybe it's a toss-up with True Detective S1.

    Altho to be fair my friends have yelled at me for not having seen the Wire, dunno if I'll ever get round to that lol

  • Should I watch Pluribus just to be ready to explain to my two friends who are watching it why it's anticommunist garbage?

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  • I don't think the show is anti-communist.

    I don't think the show is explicitly pro-communist either, but it's very very critical of American Exceptionalism. The entire point of the scene I described is to show how absurd the main character is for trying to do what she's doing- she just immediately thinks that her way of seeing things is correct, without considering that other people might have other points of view and see the situation differently. (And the dramatic irony is that even the bloody hivemind gets that.)

    And sure there's a line about "being the worst mass murderer since Stalin", but that line is coming out of the mouth of our American brain-wormed white-splaining main character, who is err... not portrayed as an authority on anything, really. Rather the opposite, like she's Harry DuBois levels of complete fuck-up.

    My interpretation of the show so far is that it is a character piece about how the average American would react to their society changing drastically (whether the societal change depicted in the show is an allegory for communism or A.I. singularity stuff that other commenters pointed out in this thread is kinda left to the viewer's interpretation). It's an examination of exactly how many of their fears of change are legitimate issues of identity and consent/rights, and how many are knee-jerk reactionary fears born from a lifetime of capitalist and American propaganda.

    The show is not exactly kind to the average American, in my opinion.

  • Should I watch Pluribus just to be ready to explain to my two friends who are watching it why it's anticommunist garbage?

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  • I popped in the first episode just for this post-

    The show seems to be an elaborate Thought Experiment in the vein of a lot of classic sci-fi: How would the average upper/middle class American react to their society transforming from an individualist one to a collectivist one overnight?

    The POV character in the show isn't exactly the most flattering portrayal of the average upper-class American, I'll say that much.

    Yeah, the hivemind is an old redscare sci-fi trope but I don't know, the vibes I'm getting are that ol' Vince "Breaking Bad" Gilligan isn't exactly going weigh in on the side of American exceptionalism, but I could be wrong I only watched 1 episode.

    Edit: I thought about it some more- If the hivemind is actually supposed to be villainous, there's a queer reading where the hivemind could represent hetero-normative society attempting to stamp out what makes the main character (who is a lesbian) "different". But I'd need to see more of the show to see how exactly it handles queer identity beyond what was introduced in the first episode.

    Double edit: Ok made it thru episode 2 and the entire scene set on Air Force One of a white person belligerently "explaining" to a room of coloured people that they have to save the world, only to engender the response of "Wait what why? The world doesn't need saving from this" is waaaaaaaaaay too on-the-nose that there really isn't any further room for discussion here.

  • [CW: Child neglect] Nyaaa objectify your fellow man

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  • Get in the economy Shinji

  • Onii Chan is watching

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  • Oh goodie I get to wheel this (google doc link, be careful about clicking it) out again

    His eyes re-focused on the page. He discovered that while he sat helplessly musing he had also been writing, as though by automatic action. And it was no longer the same cramped, awkward handwriting as before. His pen had slid voluptuously over the smooth paper, printing in large neat capitals

    DOWN WITH ONII-CHAN

    DOWN WITH ONII-CHAN

    DOWN WITH ONII-CHAN

    DOWN WITH ONII-CHAN

    DOWN WITH ONII-CHAN

    over and over again, filling half a page.

  • Why Do So Many Twitter Nazis Love K-On!?

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  • I mean, Anno got paid to yell at the people who missed the point for 5 entire movies (End of Eva + the Rebuilds) by the people who missed the point so y'know, go get that bag I guess.

  • Why Do So Many Twitter Nazis Love K-On!?

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  • College arc K-On is nothing much to write home about honestly, which is probably why it didn't get adapted. They introduce the grumpiest butch lesbian coded character to act as straight man to Yui, but the humor falls kinda flat cos the punchline is just Yui failing to adult. The side plot of Azusa taking over the band club and trying to fill her seniors shoes is a lot more funny and compelling imo.

  • Why Do So Many Twitter Nazis Love K-On!?

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  • leads people to idealize innocence and retreat into an endless source of simulated innocence as comfort

    What's ironic is that the text itself repudiates this: the kids all graduate highschool at the end of the show, and their last band practice is extremely bittersweet- every moment with your friends and loved ones is precious and you need to enjoy the good times while they last because nothing lasts forever, everyone eventually has to grow up and assume adult responsibilities.

    But conservatives aren't known for their media literacy.

  • NSFW

    (Ave Mujica spoilers) I love it when fan typesetters take the opportunity to make the subtitles diegetic

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  • The Bang Dream! series is probably the middest of mid K-On! clones, with the one saving grace that the character writing is surprisingly good and it isn't afraid of making its characters messy and unsympathetic in service to the drama.

    It's MYGO is this kinda heartfelt personal journey about the struggles faced by the neurodiverse that's wrapped up in a band show... and then the direct sequel/follow up to that in Ave Mujica is the most extra goth rock drama that skirts soooo close to the line of melodrama and problematicism yet never quite crosses over.

    Basically we go from crying every other episode to screaming every other episode and somehow the characters from both shows manage to exist in the same universe at the same time talking to each other and it's a TRIP.

    Which is to say good job to the subtitlers they nailed the vibe right there

  • (Finished) Hexbear Code to Live By (Final).xls Edit - New (Draft).docx

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  • The Hexbear code of conduct should just be rule 1, but then most of the site would be banned at this rate.

  • Is this theory?

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  • Yes

    (Ok for real tho, One Piece is baby's first leftist media with a looooot of stuff to criticize, especially some of the early stuff that didn't age particularly well. But having said all that, it probably is one of the best illustrations of how neoliberal hegemony operates as an unjust oppressive power structure put to fiction, and demonstrates why it is our moral imperative to oppose those structures. It's not a substitute for reading theory but I don't think anyone would seriously suggest that anyway, and it's nice to have at least some popular media that's for us, y'know?)