7th Station ~TV, movies, games~

[Celedam]

To take my mind off the real presidential election campaign here in the U.S., I've been rewatching the original Yes, Minister (1980–84) and Yes, Prime Minister (1986–88). It has aged well. Beyond the jokes, the philosophical debates over the nature and purpose of government are quite interesting. For example, good/evil versus order/chaos…

https://youtu.be/MaHQ-DAtFOw?t=8m24s

[resop2]

To help try to make it through my sinus infection, I have been marathon watching Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. It's a rather atypical superhero show since the title characters will never admit to being heroes, believing themselves to be rouges who just happen to be fighting an evil invading force who are preventing them from finding and stealing earth's greatest treasure and preventing them from eating curry rice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizoku_Sentai_Gokaiger

[Starra]

So recently I binge-read the Shingeki no Kyojin manga. Hoooo boy it's a rollercoaster. And we're only just getting to the good bit!

It's a lot more than I expected. The anime was pretty decent for what it was, but I've since been interested in the universe and want to know what the fuck is going on (spoiler: we only kind of found out some stuff in the latest chapter but there are still so many questions), so I decided to read it.

I signed up for good characters fighting titans, not a political mystery manga, dammit! Not that I'm complaining. The anime really leaves out a lot of the political commentary (which is fair enough) and turns it into more of an action series. Of course, at its core, it is an action, but there's more to it than a teenage boy fighting titans. Like, we still don't entirely know the reasons for the titans existing (we know why they're near where the main characters are but that's it), several of the characters are still pretty mysterious (Ymir, Zackly, Pixis, etc), there's a whole lot of conspiracy stuff, etc etc. The manga is also a lot darker than the anime. There's a torture scene (it's interrogation torture, but still), much more obvious WWII parallels (although some of it was in the anime), characters' deaths/battles are much bloodier/gorier, and many other things.

It sucks that the anime's so far behind. Season 2 is only coming out next April and the manga's already on chapter 86 (S1 covered up to around chapter 30)... There are so many things I want to see animated (mostly Levi's backstory -- even though the spinoff got two OVAs), although now knowing what we know it'll be interesting to go that far back and watch it. There are definitely hints here and there to the true nature of it all, and people have already made some connections (a few of which are pretty incredible, including the identity of the titan that ate Eren's mother... well played, Isayama).

I love SnK. I never expected it to become one of my favourites but I'm so invested in this universe that I'm watching the shitty middle school AU anime. Mostly for Levi, though. Although Eren (I'm worried about him, poor kid's been through a hell of a lot) and Ymir are pretty great too, and I love Jean and Armin as well. And Historia. And Carla, of all characters. Manga!Mikasa is also amazing compared to anime!Mikasa (not that anime!Mikasa's bad, she's just different).

I'm glad Isayama's going the route he is with the manga. People will probably be pretty disappointed, but nobody really expected it. Sure, some people had guessed some elements, but not... not in the way he put them together. He's a wonderful storyteller, and I really appreciate that. SnK is one of the few instances where I'm more interested in the story itself than the characters. Sure, I love a lot of the characters, but I love the story just as much if not more so.

Please read SnK, even if you wait for the manga to finish (which might be soonish, although there is still a lot to tie up). The hype exists for a reason. I thought it was pretty overrated before reading the manga, but it isn't. It's good. Really good. It's definitely one of my favourite manga series, although to be fair I haven't read a lot of manga...

[Nayoko-Kihara]

As a big fan of the "CATS" musical, I should have expected I would come away liking this on styling alone. Bombalurina they are not, but they sure are cute.

I've been listeing to/watching this (and part 2) more than usual since the Morning Musume preview came out. Back and forth between the two. The urge to have some fun playing around with a fantasy casting is strong.

[rikkikow]

I didn't know where to put this. I guess this is as good as any. Fitting for day after Halloween.
First J-POP Summit Movie Night is GODZILLA!


erilaz you even qualify for a free beer too!
http://www.j-pop.com/2017/j-pop-movie-night-godzilla/

[erilaz]

^ Interesting! But it's December 1st!

[rikkikow]

^ Interesting! But it's December 1st!

Oh yeah! How could I forget about the Car Show at Moscone Center and Thanksgiving.
and voting day? ha ha Skipped the whole month on November. My birthday is even in November.

[Celedam]

So, after spending several months catching up on Critical Role, I'm finally getting around to other shows.

Right now I'm watching Jessica Jones. It, like Netflix's other Marvel series (e.g., Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Defenders), is supposed to be set in the same MCU as the Marvel movies. In fact, it obliquely references the battle with Loki and the Chitauri at the end of The Avengers.

Anyhow, during episode 2 there is shot of the New York City skyline with particular emphasis on the MetLife Building. The MetLife Building no longer exists in the MCU, however; it was bought by Tony Stark and then partially deconstructed in order to build the new Stark Tower (later rechristened Avengers Tower). That shot of the skyline should have shown the tower, front and center.

It makes me wonder, are the producers just sloppy/cheap or is this a divergent universe?

(if you think this a stupid thing for me to get hung up on, you don't know me as well as you think you do.)

[Nayoko-Kihara]

^ If I recall correctly, I remember seeing questions about that pop up in a couple of places back when the series premiered. I haven't watched the second Avengers movie (and only skimmed the first), so without checking further I didn't catch exactly what people were talking about at the time. It seems hard to believe it would be a money issue with Disney in connection and the popularity of comic-based media these days.
---- ---- ---- ----

Speaking of Disney, I think "Banjo the Woodpile Cat" is the only Don Bluth film I've never seen, and somehow I only just discovered that it exists. All the reading up I've done on him and other Disney animators and it still escaped me until now.

[Celedam]

A deleted scene from Season 6 of Game of Thrones…



I can see why they deleted it, but it would've been nice to have more Mace Tyrell scenes like this. He might have been a clueless oaf, but he was one of the few mostly decent characters in the story, and it would've been nice to see more of that.