Mezmero

@edgaras1103: Nah I haven't read up on his process beyond glancing a wiki. I'm just going by how it looks. Some of those human faces look like Greg Land levels of tracing face photos. It might cost a bit more money to work like that but I'd imagine it saves him time and creativity on coming up with designs to use. Sure there's a nice look to it but it doesn't feel very unique when a majority of the characters look straight up modeled after celebrities and the monsters are traced off of real life statues and sculptures. Obviously the line work gets a bit more free flowing when the statues start morphing into monstrous forms and the body horror runs amok. There's just not enough originality in my eyes to make the art feel truly cohesive overall. Honestly I think the ugliness of the art kind of add to the overarching themes of repulsive human nature and ended up still making it one of my favorite sci-fi series ever, despite how predictably disappointing the final couple of arcs were.

@jiggajoe14: As far as I'm concerned Takamura is the main character of that series. I don't give a damn how much screen time and character development Ippo gets, Takamura is da man.

@edgaras1103: I really like Gantz as a manga but yeah, I wasn't that into the anime adaptation and I'm not into the idea of a CG movie either. I think for me it's hard enough to absorb all the horrific shit in comic form and seeing it in motion makes it that much harder to digest. And for as much as I like the comic the art is straight up bad more often than not. I shouldn't even say bad it's just not very impressive or imaginative considering the amount of photo reffing, composite images, and CG models that get used in panels.

Right, they call him 'Cage' because he's not a man, he's a...cage... A cage isn't really a machine. More of an apparatus or structure.

Meh, I'm sick of these animated movies resorting to just rehashing the Batman stuff. Dark Knight Returns was good but it benefits primarily on how close it gets to the source material to the point that they needed two parts. This one will be probably be really good as well if it does the same level of detail. If anything this will probably be a great swan song for Hamil and Conroy reprising those roles. It would suck if their final duet was Arkham Knight, which was disappointing for reasons far beyond the voice performances. However I find that the majority of DC's animated stuff has become beloved specifically for how well they do alternate takes on established DC characters. It's cool that they can make feature length content based on really great stories but I'm more interested in animated movies with obscure characters a la Assault on Arkham or mainstays that deserve to get fleshed out a la Flashpoint Paradox. That's just me.

I had skipped the last two weeks of the One Piece anime because I wasn't interested in filler nonsense. My brother said there was some good stuff in there so I checked them out and I don't think he knows what qualifies as 'good' anymore. First off the animation is terrible which I've come to expect from modern day Toei. Second there was almost no new information introduced at all in favor of a really terrible sub plot. I thought I had broken the spell of this series especially after such a lackluster arc, but after seeing the preview for next week I'll probably just keep watching.

Started second season of Ace of Diamond. Still pretty good. Not much else to say other than I dig Sawamura's creepy smile technique.

Watched the first episode of Attack on a Train Town or whatever it's called. Yeah it's very much like that other series with much sharper and consistent animation. The problem for me is that it's a little TOO much like Attack on Titan and there are aspects of that plot and premise that I found really stupid. Still not a fan of this obsession of arbitrarily making a moe girl killer assassin in anime.

Finally saw the first episode of Erased with some friends. I think were all a bit nonplussed by it. Seems good from a production aspect but I think I'm just not in the mood for a time travel thing at the moment. Can't say why I feel that way, probably has something to do with years of comic books, movies, video games, and heck other cartoons dealing in this topic. I can always appreciate a new take on it so I'll probably pick it back up at some point.

JoJo is just damn good. Stand abilities make me miss a time when Devil Fruit powers were a lot more simple and esoteric.

I had forgotten that Game of Thrones was even coming back in April. I'm in a weird place with this show because I think I mostly enjoy it but it's the production itself that I enjoy the most because I think the story in this fictional world is kind of shitty. I went into the series premiere ready to write it off but there was some good stuff in there so I guess I'm back in on it.

For one thing the show runners decided to hook me back in immediately by having two of my favorite living characters in the first few minutes, Sir Davos and Edd. In my heart of hearts I'd love for them to be the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of the story but this show has taught me some harsh lessons about how expendable the entire cast seems to be. They've introduced an out with the Lord of Light magic though that deity had perhaps his weakest showing in the season prior. Maybe it's a sign of winter having come which I'm guessing is the time when his power is weakest? I don't know, this series started getting less interesting when they introduced any kind of magic.

I must say as much as I don't give a damn about what happens with Sansa and Theon seeing Brienne come in to kick ass made me want to pump my fist with excitement. It's more interesting to me that she is so determined to keep her promise to Lady Stark than it is if she actually gets Sansa to safety.

Completely disinterested in anything happening in Dorne. Like whatever, the writer just wants to watch society crumble in the easiest way possible as far as I can tell.

Don't give a damn about Dany either who seems to have gone from hero to zero for the sake of filling time. I feel like all she exists for is to have dragons fuck shit up in this show. More interested in seeing what Tyrion does in a strange land.

I saw the stream of PAXAMANIA live and I got a lot of big laughs out of it despite what a train wreck it turned into. I think I had just as many moments of confusion as I did laughs because a lot of what was happening felt incomprehensible without games being played to tie it together. So much like real wrestling in that way. I like to think that Dr. Trackscrubs is what would happen if Dr. Tracksuit got into DDP Yoga. I was equally confused by the dance hypnosis by the Chikara dudes at the end. I figured they were Men in Black style trying to hypnotize the crowd into forgetting what a shit show it had been.

I think you're damned if you do when you're centering this weird e-fed thing around video games, especially if technical difficulties pop up the way they did. It's not like the competitive playing of video games is an art form. It's hard to "work" an angle with a crowd because you either win or lose in vidja games. At that point it just becomes a sillier version of EVO than something where good guys and bad guys play video games for the sake of a larger story line. Then again there seemed to be an utter lack of good guys on this entire roster.

In short, I'd watch more of PAX wrestling. As with actual wrestling promotions they just need to get their shit together on the production side.

@akyho: It's good that you're enjoying the glut of DC animated movies that have been coming out for the past couple years. I keep tabs on all the stuff they've been putting out but I for one found most of them to be utterly mediocre. Take Justice League vs Teen Titans for example. I think it's decent as a vehicle for Raven and Trigon especially for people who aren't fully aware of those characters. However I found most of the fights to be super underwhelming and thought there was a ton of pandering bullshit thrown in just because. That teen team bonding montage in the middle was excruciating.

I think of all the movies they have released since Flashpoint Paradox I've only thought maybe 3 were truly great. Flashpoint Paradox is one, Gods and Monsters is another though that might be due to the nostalgia I have for the Bruce Timm style of directing. Assault on Arkham blew away my expecations so I'd recommend you see that one at some point. Part of this is likely my own fatigue with the over saturation of Batman centric media despite the fact that I love Scott Snyder's run of comics as well as 2 of the Nolan movies and the Arkham games. DC has done the impossible and run that character into the ground for me within the animated universe that use to make Batman look awesome.

This is a huge loss for the world of music and pop culture. Prince was a weirdo but also insanely entertaining. May he rest in peace.

@jiggajoe14: Holy hell. You mean I get to see that stupid windmill Gundam in HD?! Sold!