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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2944 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 11, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Digital fast update, Peter and Paul edition.

  1. Your Name, +2. A feature-length anime about a city boy and a country girl swapping bodies that takes an unexpected turn when they decide to meet. It's one of the best-drawn 2D movies I've ever seen and even some 3D-assisted total animation they used doesn't look jarring. As far as I know, the director deliberately wanted to avoid making "another anime" and wanted this to be treated as a work that is judged on its own, not because it has round eyes and too few FPS. He made a couple more feature films after this one that I plan to watch, but I can't be assed to find proper ass subs that overlay carefully styled text over signs and phones and newspapers and do other fancy stuff like that.
  2. Master and Commander: the Far Side of the World, 0. If you have a hardon for the Royal Navy, like Catgirl Kulak, then watch it. Volokolamskoye Shosse is probably a better book about military leadership. The ship scenes look great, but the plot feels more like a series of vignettes than a coherent story. And Russell Crowe is fat.
  3. Breaking Bad, rating pending. I still haven't finished watching it. It will most likely get a +2 from me, but I want to finish season five before rating it properly.
  4. One Punch Man, 0. I almost gave it a -1 after watching the first few series, but then it finally realized it needed at least some plot. It's still nothing more than The Adventures of Dr. McNinja with Japanese characteristics, which makes sense, given than it started as a webcomic as well.

And Russell Crowe is fat

This is just additional realism in casting. In the book series Maturin comments how captain Aubrey is overweight. Royal Navy food was not delectable (biscuits infested with weevils) but it was calorie rich, and unlike the seamen, captain had not many obligations to engage in strenuous physical activity.

But yes the plot suffers because the most exciting naval ploys and scenes from several different episodes from early books are condensed to a single 'chase'. However, if they were more 'true' to the series, it wouldn't have been necessarily any less like a series of vignettes. it's been some time since I read the books, but I got the impression the author leaned towards realism in a way which makes for boring cinema by Hollywood blockbuster standards: Aubrey receives boring or exciting assignments or no assignments at all depending on the interpersonal politics and favors and strategic situation of Napoleonic wars (all essentially random from Aubrey's POV) -- often nothing much happens -- individual naval battles are more often due random happenstance than forming a satisfying narrative arch.

The naval romanticism comes in how Aubrey and Maturin find themselves in once-in-lifetime action improbably often and Aubrey gets to execute all the naval tactical genius of the Royal Navy of the era personally. (All the battles and stratagems are supposedly historical or closely inspired, but Aubrey's career is not.) Additionally, later on Maturin turns a little bit into James Bond of Napoleonic times, with all improbable features and events inherit in that.

There would have been some romance in the books, which might have been good for box office if they had incorporated that.

I loved the aesthetics of 'Your Name' but found the plot kind of lame. It made no sense whatsoever. Yeah, I don't care the clouds were kitschy. Same is true of every other film of his I've seen, including the latest, Suzume.

E.g. 'The place promised in our early days' had an impeccable vibe and mystery to it, but in the end the whole thing made ..little real sense at all. Still, enjoyable. Also I feel like I'd want to go see coastal Japan eventually.

Haven't seen the movie so can't comment, but the Aubreyiad is a great, fun series which apparently is catnip to a lot of non-cat girls as well (I'm seeing a ton of fanart for it on Tumblr even this long after the movie). O'Brien manages to pull off all the hearty naval stuff for the boys and introduce the main relationship, which is the friendship of Stephen and Jack, which draws in the girls as well. He had me laughing at bad 18th century jokes and while I remain as ignorant as Stephen about the workings of a ship, the rest of it all held my interest too.

I have read the first book and seen the movie. I think the movie is great, but it was one that got better on repeat viewings for me as I came to appreciate the characters and setting more. As in the book I have read in the series, the movie is more about the relationship between Aubrey and Maturin, and being an interesting depiction of life at sea, than it is about the plot.

The running plot, such as it is, throughout the books is good but it's mostly "the Napoleonic Wars at sea" so unless you're absolutely fascinated by the minutiae of naval campaigns, the real interest is "ooh so this was what life was like on a ship at that time" and then it's "will Jack advance his career, will Stephen ever have a happy relationship, never mind they're best bros and we all love learning natural history".

There are just so many great lines (everyone's favourite is this one) (warning: TV Tropes link):

Stephen acquires a sloth in South America, and it immediately befriends everybody aboard. Except Jack, who for some inexplicable reason gets rebuffed- the poor thing cried when it first saw him. When he finally resorts to feeding the sloth bits of ship's biscuit soaked in rum, he soon wins its friendship but ends up turning it into an alcoholic. Thus leading to a line found nowhere else in literature: "Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

But Stephen is like me - all the nautical terms and explanations just go right over my head and don't lodge. Gluppit the prawling strangles, indeed!

Stephen: The moment you are afloat you become pragmatical and absolute, a bashaw —do this, do that, gluppit the prawling strangles, there—no longer a social being at all.

You start off reading for the "Napoleonic Wars at sea" but then you sort of forget about that and treat it like 'Stephen's Big Natural History Expedition' and 'Jack climbs the ranks' so that the great world-shaking events become background, almost, to the little dramas played out in their world.

From what I've read, the movie tried to compress the stories from several novels into one, which causes it to jump from scene to scene awkwardly.

I can't remember if it was Your Name or Weathering With You that I watched. I think it was Weathering. I downloaded both of them after reading yet another "recommend some anime for non-anime watchers" thread. Whichever one it was I switched it off unfinished, deleted the other one without watching it, and re-examined my credulity for internet anime recommendations.

One Punch Man on the other hand was thoroughly entertaining even as the joke began wearing thin, but that was recommended to me by a real person who isn't into anime.

Must’ve been Weathering

Just watch Samurai Champloo and Cowboy Bepop over and over again like I do

Maybe add Elfen Lied - or Gantz if you want something almost good

I feel like I'm the only person in existence who doesn't like Cowboy Bebop.

It's a very vibey show but it's all aesthetics, the characters and their motivations are about as deep as a puddle, and the episode-to-episode plots make very little logical sense and feel like they were all made up on the spot with a lot of technobabble to cover up the sheer lack of effort put into any of the plotting or worldbuilding. I watched many episodes and never got the sense that it was a coherent world with rules that had to be adhered to at all. Incoherent ass-pulling constitutes a significant portion of how most of the plots in each episode actually progress, and it's really hard to be invested in the episodic narratives when some deus ex machina can be invoked at literally any time to turn the plot on its head. The overarching reaction I had to most episodes was "This is happening now, I guess". Honky Tonk Women is an early example of an episode that's just needlessly contrived and really only exists because of a lot of irrationality and a one-in-a-million coincidence without which the plot would not happen.

They also try to pull emotional scenes at the end of most episodes that don't hit IMO because they spent too little time fleshing out the characters; that moment in Asteroid Blues when it's revealed that Asimov and Katerina won't make it to Mars is clearly supposed to be a pensive one, but you've spent all of 15 minutes with them at that point and so the emotional scene feels unearned. Also seriously, does anyone actually like Faye Valentine? She's superficially charming but is often shown to be a selfish, arrogant, lazy individual who leeches off the rest of the Bebop without so much as a show of gratitude, with a bad habit of gambling all her money away.

Visually, aurally, it's a great experience; the whole atmosphere is immaculate. But you need more than that to carry a show IMO, and animes almost always fall apart on plotting and characterisation for me (Japanese narrative writing generally rarely delivers on these fronts). Ghost In The Shell is another great example of a classic anime with fantastic art direction crippled by a wafer-thin narrative, which purports to be way more than it actually is given that it has basically nothing much to say on the subjects of consciousness and AI it touches on (what it does say is vague and bordering on incoherent). This banger of an intro sequence deserved so much better.

Agreed on Cowboy Bebop, watching it was one of sad disappointments of my life. Intro looks and sounds great, everything else was kinda let down.

i like to think of it like this: whole setting, plot and characterization that were running on rule of cool, it would have been much cooler had I seen it in the 90s. Perhaps non-sensical plot was less distracting when you can watch one episode once a week at a late night slot and thus have forgot some details of previous episodes -- it becomes more difficult to bear when you can watch all the episodes. Today the futurism is no longer futuristic, and I've seen more series and games that do cyberpunk/scifi more seriously and coherently. I have seen works that have done the whole schtick of "eclectic mercenary crew of spaceship have space western adventures" and done it better (all the time I was thinking "I should be rewatching Firefly")

I think you might be right on Cowboy Bebop, though I still like it because I grew up with it. It wasn't until I watched Samurai Champloo as an adult that I realized that Cowboy Bebop was as you say, because I found that Samurai Champloo was superficial in the same ways that Cowboy Bebop was, though Samurai Champloo's case was more severe, I think.

I definitely agree with you on Ghost in the Shell, the movie. I watched it and just could not understand at all how it was so popular and influential as a 90s anime movie. Akira was way better.

I had the reverse reaction from you. I saw GitS and thought it was good (the series is better though), but can't understand why people rate Akira so highly. That movie is equal parts boring and confusing, I really didn't care for it.

That movie is equal parts boring and confusing

It took me a while to figure out but I think essentially it's film noir in a sci-fi costume. It's the keyhole effect where you only see small parts of what hints at a much larger and unresolved/unresolvable story occurring off screen.

That's a defence which is open to charges of cope, but it fits. The trouble is you come out at the end confused and wondering wtf is going on, but, like hating Skylar White in Breaking Bad, it's possible that was exactly what the creators wanted you to feel, and it worked as intended because they executed it so well.

That aside it's visually fantastic which makes it very watchable in spite of the narrative issues.

For me personally, Akira was like Fallout 1 in a lot of ways due to its ultra brutal ultra sci-fi setting. The real problem with Akira for me is that it is a little directionless, and gets a lot worse once the final part of it begins. I preferred the scenes before Tetsuo started duking it out with the entire city. Also I really liked the colonel character. Overall, it felt like a lot was happening and the animation was amazing, you could tell that a lot of effort was put into each shot and that nothing before or after Akira will ever look like it.

GitS, on the other hand, had a ton of still shots where people were monologuing, and I hated those. Nothing they were saying felt interesting in any way, and even if it was interesting, how is that the correct format to say it in, shot after shot of people talking long-windedly like it's a Dostoyevsky novel? That goes for when the protagonist is getting briefed for the mission, for when the android thing is talking to the scientists, and for when the minimally augmented guy is talking to the rest of the crew. I can't say I felt any real tension during any part of the film, either. And everyone praised the animation, but I can't really say I ever felt like it was particularly exceptional.

I will defend GitS the movie: it's ultimately a tecno-thriller action movie with great visuals and music. there's a little bit of mystery-conspiracy to drive the action scenes forward, and little bit of philosophy to ponder about during the slow scenes. While ultimately not too deep, by standards of action movies the philosophical ponderings are actually pretty great.

The Wachowskis say it inspired the Matrix, and I think GitS -- and also the first tv anime series-- beat the Matrix in internal coherence.

You criticism is quite valid. I rewatched the Bebop movie during the Lent because I found Black Lagoon to be a pale imitation, and I agree that it's style, not substance, that CB relies on.

Also seriously, does anyone actually like Faye Valentine? She's superficially charming but is often shown to be a selfish, arrogant, lazy individual who leeches off the rest of the Bebop without so much as a show of gratitude, with a bad habit of gambling all her money away.

First of all, tits. Secondly, this character archetype is relatively uncommon in anime.

I just watched a few episodes of Elfen Lied before being rather turned off. I appreciate an anime that shows off some titties as much as the next man, but the characters seemed one-note and the plot and pacing were.. lacking. You call it "almost good", but I'd have to say that's a better assessment than I made, heh.

I thought Elfen Lied was great… when I was in high school. Now, it’d probably go in the “guilty pleasure” box at best.

I can’t imagine recommending it to someone who’s just getting into anime, unless I already knew they were into that sort of thing.

I tried the first two a while ago and tapped out of them pretty fast too.

The only anime series I've finished other than OPM was Welcome To The NHK. It was overly long but it was darkly comical enough to keep me watching to the end.

I'm not a total non-anime watcher but I haven't found much I like outside of the well known feature length films. Even the popular titles like Evangelion and Blade of The Immortal didn't do it for me. Cyberpunk looked okay but turned into a Joss Whedon-alike by the second episode.

Maybe I'll try Uzumaki again when I hit a dry spell (tipped by the same guy who recommended me OPM).

Watch Death Note. I've never found a human who didn't like Death Note.

I am bipedal, featherless and have broad flat nails. Didn't really like the Death Note either.

I gave up on it after Light forced a woman to kill herself in such a way that nobody will ever know what happened to her.

Literally ‘for the next two hours you will think of nothing except how to kill yourself in such a way that the body will never be found, and then do so’.

He sets a time delay so that he has just enough time to gloat in front of her before it takes effect... and then we watch the light leave her eyes as she stumbles off into the rain looking for a place to destroy herself.

And all of this is presented as, essentially, a clever ploy. Death Note makes bile well up in the back of my throat. I know Light isn’t presented as a hero but I feel like it’s way too casual and pleased with itself about the concept of playing chess with human lives.

Light is pretty unambiguously the villain and, spoilers, the cops kill him in the end. You're not supposed to idolize him.

Yeah, I know. But I didn't feel like events had been treated with enough gravity, either. What just happened was really, really grim and I feel like the narrative needed to slow down and find some way to acknowledge that. As it was, I got the same sense I tend to get from Neal Stephenson: that the author is observing human emotion from the outside as a sort of interesting plot mechanism, and my desire to read further just evaporated.

Watch Death Note. I've never found a human who didn't like Death Note.

Please allow me to introduce myself / I'm a man of wealth and taste

I gave up after episode 9. The plot felt too silly and the characters childish. Everyone's actions and motivations were too far removed from reality, like a kid's idea of adult relationships and organizations. Features of the eponymous Death Note were introduced in a way that suggest the author was pulling them out of thin air without forethought or planning.

Ok, Samurai Champloo and Bebop, I get. These are essentially, perfect YA comfort food cartoons, oozing with character, atmosphere, unique soundtrack, etc. etc. They are perfect for non-anime watchers because they're crossover western-style stories done up in anime styling.

But Elfen Lied? Are we thinking of the same show? The one with the body horror? The creepy "magical" girls, the harem protagonist, etc.? I don't understand how that's even in the same category. I would recommend someone looking for "anime for non-anime watchers" never, ever, ever watch that. It will just reinforce every bad stereotype about the genre while having a perfectly "meh" plot.

Well the first two are ‘ this transcends yet IS anime ‘ and the last two ‘ ARE anime ‘ - meaning, just weirdo, brutal insanity. It’s a big part of anime with a long tradition.

Sure I wouldn’t recommend them to an anime non watcher, probably, but Elfin Lied is what got me into anime before even the classics.

What do these ratings mean, what is the scale?

  • -2: just terrible
  • -1: not recommended, unless you are really into this genre/actor/etc
  • 0: meh
  • +1: recommended, definitely watch it if you're a fan of the genre
  • +2: recommended without reservations

From how it’s presented I assume it is a 5-point scale, with the median value of 3 revised downwards to zero.

You're 100% right. I do this because the regular 5-point scale has been distorted too much by average rankings: 5 is good, everything else is bad and the real ratings are 4.99, 4.95, 4.9 etc.

This is why the best ranking method is a simple thumb up/down (or upvote/downvote, or like/dislike). Then you report the ratio, which runs the whole gamut from 1% to 99%. YouTube used to do this before they decided that dislikes were problematic. FIMFiction still uses it.

(Admittedly, this system does have the issue of only working in aggregate; there is no way for a single reviewer to distinguish between something that is barely worth watching and the greatest story ever told.)

No, this is just the Rotten Tomatoes problem all over again. Up/down works fine but not stellar because a movie everyone universally finds to be on the good side of fine, gets near-100 ratings while movies with higher highs and lower lows, that are on the whole “better” movies, get lower ratings.

I rate movies about how far they are above or below replacement, reflecting the fact that that’s how most people actually decide what to watch. A 3.5 is fine: you can watch it, it will be a movie with average enjoyment. A 4 is better than its peers: prefer it in any head to head comparison. A 4.5 is one to go out of your way to watch. A 5 is a 4.5 but one that had an especially memorable impact on me personally. A 3 is worse than replacement - it’s a below average movie. And ratings from 2.5 and down are various degrees of how aggressively you should avoid them, with a 1 star creating a negative memory you’d rather have lived your life without, ie actively harmful.

Lol, that reminds me, my friend wrote a review of Death Stranding 2 (TW: Twine, blue tribisms) democratising his score - it's 4, but you get to decide out of what depending on how you feel about Hideo Kojima. It's a great system!

I haven't seen any of those except the first few episodes of Breaking Bad.

It's actually kinda good as TV. You only feel it insults the viewer's intelligence like once per season, instead of every 5 minutes like a normal TV show.

I felt my intelligence insulted about once an episode.

This made me realize I've made a mistake. It's "Your Name", 君の名は。

Glad to have somehow helped. I haven't seen that either, alas.

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