Sunday, October 31, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
An Animation Round Up + A Few Thoughts
Alright so I spread the word about Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt about a month ago and after watching the first 4 episodes I feel like I am able to give a bit more insight about the show for the 0 people out there that are curious on the subject. P&S notably goes beyond just the aesthetic similarities by actually adopting many of the tropes often associated with american cartoons. For one, each episode is split into 2 distinct and separate stories, similar to Sponge Bob, Power Puff Girls, Dexter's Lab etc.. and in classic cartoon fashion has really bad puns for titles, I mean really bad (High School Nudical, Vomiting Point, Catfight Club - All which feature matching title cards).
One thing Panty and Stocking has going for it? Nineteen Thousand different animation styles.
Strictly from an animation perspective, P&S manages to go beyond my lofty expectations by creating pretty slick fight scenes and fluid hand drawn visuals (3D is becoming ever more prevalent throughout most japanese and american animation), but everything else is a complete and utter mess. The writing is crass without a purpose, and every episode seems to get lost as it stumbles through it's loosely defined narrative. Character development is non-existent to this point that calling them one dimensional seems generous (Panty - Likes Sex, Stocking - Likes Cake, Garterbelt - Has an afro and likes dudes) and makes Garfield seem like a Shakespearean character.
Sound design is alright, but the music is pretty hit or miss. Fight scenes are punctuated with driving electronica, but everything else has an odd sheen to it, lessening the impact of some of the well drawn visuals. The voice acting is serviceable, but it would have been much more bold to just go all the way and hire American voice actors for the parts - Sam Jackson will do anything... just sayin. It'll be interesting to see if P&S ever makes it to the states in a dubbed form and the changes that are made for an American audience. I'm not a huge fan of censorship, but I would have to think that certain aspects that will be altered for the localization may end up benefitting the product as a whole.
P&S showed a lot of promise, and still manages to shine in certain spots, but it has a ton of problems. All GAINEX shows have had issues, but P&S's may prove to be too glaring for most people.
On the other hand we have Sym-Bionic Titan, the latest show from Dexter's Lab/PowerPuff Girls/Samurai Jack creator Genndy Tartakovsky. Anyone familiar with Samurai Jack or the Clone Wars shorts will recognize the animation style, with notable use of 3D modeling in the rendering of the title giant mecha robot dubbed Titan. Following the exploits of a Princess and her assigned bodyguard (as well as a robot companion for good measure) as they escape their besieged home planet to take refuge on Earth, Titan relies on a number of tried and true sci-fi devices in the telling of it's story, but still offers a significant amount of room to play around with (There has already been an episode featuring street racing).
If Titan has one strength it is it's expertly designed direction. Titan carries on Jack's tradition of superb story-boarding that makes every single second feel deliberate and planned. The voice acting is pretty top notch and notably features Brian Posehn as the Robot AI, and John DiMaggio as an ever present Army General.
In contrast to P&S, Titan shows that if you want to make an American cartoon styled like a Tartakovsky creation, look no further then Tartakovsky himself. Also the Wonder Twins homage is appreciated.
Alright enough about that, now for a few music picks since I haven't kept to my goal of a mixtape every month (I'm trying to do some mixing and picking the right stuff is taking a tad more time then I would have liked, but maybe that'll happen? Who Knows.
1. Maki Nomiya and Fernanda Takai: Maki-Takai No Jetlag
Great mini album from Pizzicato 5 singer Maki Nomiya and Brazillian Singer Fernanda Takai (Singer in the somewhat known Pato Fu). Not too much of a departure for either but an interesting and fun collab nonetheless.
2. Sam Prekop - Old Punch Card
A lot of elctronic noises that somehow manage to come together into something that shouldn't be good, but is.
3. Royksopp - Junior
Senior was a bit of a disappointment, but Junior? Still Good.
4. Robyn - Body Talk(s)
I can not wait to see her live, should be an insane show.
5. GO!GO!7188 - Go!!GO!GO!Go!!
GO!
I watched a preair of AMC's new Zombie Apocalypse drama 'The Walking Dead' and all I can say is that AMC continues to pick incredible projects.
Also here is me with a puppy to up the cute factor of this post:
Strictly from an animation perspective, P&S manages to go beyond my lofty expectations by creating pretty slick fight scenes and fluid hand drawn visuals (3D is becoming ever more prevalent throughout most japanese and american animation), but everything else is a complete and utter mess. The writing is crass without a purpose, and every episode seems to get lost as it stumbles through it's loosely defined narrative. Character development is non-existent to this point that calling them one dimensional seems generous (Panty - Likes Sex, Stocking - Likes Cake, Garterbelt - Has an afro and likes dudes) and makes Garfield seem like a Shakespearean character.
Sound design is alright, but the music is pretty hit or miss. Fight scenes are punctuated with driving electronica, but everything else has an odd sheen to it, lessening the impact of some of the well drawn visuals. The voice acting is serviceable, but it would have been much more bold to just go all the way and hire American voice actors for the parts - Sam Jackson will do anything... just sayin. It'll be interesting to see if P&S ever makes it to the states in a dubbed form and the changes that are made for an American audience. I'm not a huge fan of censorship, but I would have to think that certain aspects that will be altered for the localization may end up benefitting the product as a whole.
P&S showed a lot of promise, and still manages to shine in certain spots, but it has a ton of problems. All GAINEX shows have had issues, but P&S's may prove to be too glaring for most people.
On the other hand we have Sym-Bionic Titan, the latest show from Dexter's Lab/PowerPuff Girls/Samurai Jack creator Genndy Tartakovsky. Anyone familiar with Samurai Jack or the Clone Wars shorts will recognize the animation style, with notable use of 3D modeling in the rendering of the title giant mecha robot dubbed Titan. Following the exploits of a Princess and her assigned bodyguard (as well as a robot companion for good measure) as they escape their besieged home planet to take refuge on Earth, Titan relies on a number of tried and true sci-fi devices in the telling of it's story, but still offers a significant amount of room to play around with (There has already been an episode featuring street racing).
If Titan has one strength it is it's expertly designed direction. Titan carries on Jack's tradition of superb story-boarding that makes every single second feel deliberate and planned. The voice acting is pretty top notch and notably features Brian Posehn as the Robot AI, and John DiMaggio as an ever present Army General.
In contrast to P&S, Titan shows that if you want to make an American cartoon styled like a Tartakovsky creation, look no further then Tartakovsky himself. Also the Wonder Twins homage is appreciated.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)