Temple of Kraden News:
| Greetings, heathen. Perhaps some fortuitous blessing of Kraden's grace hath led you to our humble Temple, or perhaps you are simply curious about this strange and wonderful cult. Should you be willing - and dare to hope - to achieve enlightenment, the door opens before you. Lo! Leave your old life behind! For once you step through, you become something more than just yourself. You become a Kradenette. Are you willing to make the rapturous plunge? Do you have what it takes? One of us! One of us! One of us! Already one of us? Make your presence known: |
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| Jacob watches Baccano!; inspired by umadnarel, done to help culture aarondorf | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 17 2014, 08:10 PM (1,571 Views) | |
| Deleted User | Jan 17 2014, 08:10 PM Post #1 |
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Deleted User
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alright, so, as part of my mission to educate aarondorf on good things to watch, i have taken up a cross, my friends. i have gone somewhere that I pledged I would never go before, do something that I never thought myself capable. that my friends, is going to the eastern hemisphere to consume media. now, aarondorf suggested either baccano or fate/zero, and i elected to choose the former because amydorf ran a mafia about it a while back and has tried to get me to watch it a few times, plus aaron said he liked the latter better and i have to go against him. i'm soneone who watches a ton of tv. like, a metric [radio edit]ton. it's by far my favorite medium, i have a boner for basically any serialized dramas. i've a near encyclopediac knowledge of several landmark dramas and sitcoms and if there's been a popular or significant cable, network, or premium television show recently, i've probably seen it. i love me some long slow-developing story arcs. good, bad, shitty, funny, boring, whatever, if it's fiction and on television i've probably seen it. a notable exception to this is animation. aside from me tuning in and watching the new south parks religiously and my encyclopedic knowledge of king of the hill, aside from children's cartoons, i haven't ever been able to get into it. virtually all of the animated programming that i have consumed in my life falls into either kid's stuff or satire. Rugrats or King of the Hill. Dexter's Lab or South Park. it's incredibly difficult for me to shake off the programming that it's for kids or it's making fun of idiots, so there's a pretty high barrier for anything animated. the few times that i've attempted to watch anything from that awful set of islands, my prevailing opinion has been 'childish, this sucks, get it off my computer' or 'not funny, this sucks, get it off my computer'. i will be attempting to not view this in eithe of those fashions. spoilers for this weeaboo show if you haven't seen it, if you haven't though i have no idea why you would click this topic, so go [radio edit] yourself. onto the episode itself. the opening was awful. i cringed at literally everything that the vp and carol said, was bored to tears throughout their entire conversation, and considered shutting it off and letting aaron rot in his academia weeaboo bubble until he trots off of japan and dies of mercury poisoning from eating sushi six meals a day, that fat [radio edit]. the whole 'xxx points' from the old guy followed by the 'out of how many' from the girl was awful and i wish it would die in a hole. terrible, terrible framing device, though the two dorfs (aaron and amy) assure me that they're largely a nonfactor throughout the rest of the series, so oh well. i had two major, major problems with this episode, and i doubt that either of them will be resolved. one, another reason why i dislike animation is that everything feels overstated. every action, every emotion, every scene feels like it's shoved in my face incessantly, over and over and over again. there is no room for subtlety, no room for anything other than people physically shaking from anger, spittle flying out of their mouths. Every scene, every conflict feels so incredibly manufactured. nothing feels organic at all, and i don't know if that's something that's going to change. I doubt it, but oh well. the other big thing that irritated the piss out of me was the fact that it felt very jerky. rapid scene changes were rampant, everything felt frantic and frenzied like the show didn't really know who it wanted to show you or what it wanted to tell you about. every time i would start to get the least bit interested in things, it would cut away to something completely different and by the time it came back, i ceased to give a [radio edit]. i really did not get a feel for any characters at all because of this, the show felt like it was trying to jam so much shit down my throat in such a short time that they activated the gag reflex and i upchucked it all over its stupid face. it totally ruined immersion for me and made it difficult to pay attention to. not to say that my impressions were wholly negative, though. much of the entertainment for me was derived from seeing a fresh perspective of the prohibition, depression era, a time in US hsitory that I am fascinated and familiar with. though for most of it, i felt like they'd watched some scenes in italian in the godfather ii and that was the extent and understanding of the era, but it was entertaining. i also really enjoyed the library scene, except for the pointless exposition about death from some guy that i don't know or care about yet. i don't have enough about him for me to really judge or care about his feelings on the matter, i guess. that was the one part that felt like it wasn't forced, like it came about naturally, and i was enjoying it. of course then we had the machine guns go through them and the absolutely ridiculous gore (i've watched some serious [radio edit]ed up shit in my time but honestly this cartoon gore bothered me. it was like mortal kombat type gore that instead of laughing at, i was supposed to take seriously, and any violent scenes really destoryed any meager immersion i had in the episode). so yeah, unfortunately, i don't think the first problem will change at all. i have hope for the second one though, and i guess i'm a little intrigued by the apparent invincibility that some characters show. episode two will come at some point |
 
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| Saturos | Jan 17 2014, 08:18 PM Post #2 |
heart-under-blade
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*grabs popcorn* I always appreciate your feedback on visual media, and you've earned my respect through your insightful Breaking Bad commentary. Watching the Sopranos should be fun for that reason. Even if you don't like the animoos, I think it's a good exercise to point to where it went wrong and what could have been done better. |
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| Momentime | Jan 17 2014, 08:22 PM Post #3 |
uh oh
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man I told you to start him off with baccano! yeeeeeeaaa booooooiiiiiii |
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| Momentime | Jan 17 2014, 08:40 PM Post #4 |
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uh oh
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btw did you watch it subbed or dubbed? imo dub is far superior to sub |
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| Deleted User | Jan 17 2014, 08:41 PM Post #5 |
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Deleted User
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Dubbed, I hate reading |
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| simplechild | Jan 17 2014, 10:52 PM Post #6 |
My only feel is murder
  ![]](http://z1.ifrm.com/static/1/pip_r.png)
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The first episode is a bit terrible with its irrelevance towards the actual storylines. There's three of them running at the same time and all of them are related to each other in some form or another, and the show feels the need to frame it a certain way for the overarching narrative to make sense. As a result, the first episode makes little sense. You won't find this problem for the rest of the series. |
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| Skylin | Jan 18 2014, 11:10 AM Post #7 |
2 Lewd 4 U
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Not sure if I want to read this topic in the future. |
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| Saturos | Jan 18 2014, 11:55 AM Post #8 |
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heart-under-blade
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That's not very polite to just say without explanation, Sky. :c |
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| Seoulbowz | Jan 18 2014, 12:23 PM Post #9 |
Supergeil
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Maybe I'll rewatch this with you, Jacob. I'll say the same thing I did in Adna's topic that I'm not sure this is what -I- would have had you watch, but I can see why people would say it fits your taste. |
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| Kiki | Jan 18 2014, 12:59 PM Post #10 |
Kiki Martius Chantico
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I couldn't get into Baccano because of the small army's worth of characters who I didn't care about, but can't say it's a bad show. I thought the dubbing was okay too, a few bad accents around but it didn't hurt too bad. Hope tou enjoy the show. |
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| Deleted User | Jan 18 2014, 05:20 PM Post #11 |
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Deleted User
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skyline you wound me :<< |
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| Momentime | Jan 18 2014, 07:40 PM Post #12 |
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uh oh
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just get to watching ep 2 already you can worry about your feelings later |
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| The Phantom Squee | Jan 18 2014, 11:02 PM Post #13 |
Sound the horn and call the cry: "How many of them can we make die?"
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I've been considering watching this at some point too, so to avoid spoiling myself I will not follow this topic. Will definitely hit you up for a general impression if/when I get around to watching it, though. |
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| Deleted User | Jan 20 2014, 05:58 PM Post #14 |
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Deleted User
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my god, the beginning of this episode was so awful. so so so awful, so incredibly terrifyingly bad. and what's the worst thing about it is that it had potential. It's been clear that this dumbass train (flying pussyfoot? that sounds more like niche pornography than anything, i'll have to keep it in mind for my next account suicide) was going to be important. and i was enjoying the old man talking to his wife about it for a while, how he was excited for it, how he thought it was cool that the first class was in the front instead of the back, just going on about the marvel of modern stuff, and then his dumbass wife is just 'blah blah blah THIS TRAIN IS TEH CURSED OMG, DONT GET ON IT this is awful on so many levels, and it really just points back to my commentary on the first episode. everything is overbearing, everything is shoved into your face. baccano has no room for subtlety, it seems. no concept of how to set a mood for a scene. if you want to foreshadow bad things happening, then forwshadow it. there are plenty of literary and writing devices that you can use to project an aura of dread. drag up an old motif of death, some clever symbolism, a seemingly throwaway bit in the background, a subtle metaphor in the dialogue. which is a shame, because if they had done almost literally anything else, the rest of the episode would have been better. it wasn't terrible, but there were elements of it that were pretty bad. I despise Isaad and Miria, they're a couple of morons who bring nothing to the show so far and really make me despise it a little bit when they're there. the guys in the white suits (i'm not sure if they were supposed to be mafia, admittedly, i was a little distracted watching this) were one of the high points of the episode, I was enjoying their conversations and dialogue. it felt smooth, it felt natural, it was good, and then, the leader of them loses his shit and goes on his rant about suffocating love or whatever, and we're back to the same old shit. the scenes on the train probably weren't objectively good, but i enjoyed them, mostly because i'm a sucker for a good ghost story. agian, i would have enjoyed the ghost story a lot more if we hadn't had the clairvoyant crusty country music loving lady (sorry for the language, but i love a little alliteration) spoil the ending for us at the beginning of the episode. Most of the dialogue and conversations on the caught my attention, and I was genuinely interested in what was happening. The blond with the eye patch was a welcome addition, she had a distinct character and look about her and was definitely memorable and even isaac and miria's dumb asses were tolerable on the train. the little douchebag that freaked out at everything was stupid as hell and i won't comment on him further. the cult taking over the train for hostages was out of left field (unless I missed something somewhere, certainly possible given that i was distracted watching this and like i said in the previous post, i have a very hard time getting immersed in any sort of animation), and I feel like it would have worked a little better with some buildup, but I enjoyed the speech about their leader. I liked the conductor's last speech to the younger counductor before he murdered him, though that too was sort of telegraphed, but oh well. to sum it up, some good things, some bad things, and a bunch of things that i'm really disappointed that they don't appear to be changing at all. a little brief and not too detailed this time, i'll try to get a litlte more meat in it next time |
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| Saturos | Jan 20 2014, 06:17 PM Post #15 |
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heart-under-blade
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agree with pretty much everything here, except that I really like Isaac and Maria. They're stupid, which is kind of the point -- they're a parody of "bonnie and clyde" kind of stuff. Not in the same way as our opening couple of Pulp Fiction is, but playing off the same source. I definitely agree that some anime really overdoes the "message" thing; that heavy-handedness is part of why I really disliked this other one, Penguindrum. If it was toned down, delivered more smoothly with effective use of motif and well-placed symbolism it could have been great, but they overdo it and it's like "nooooo stoooop." EDIT: huh, something that occurs to me. I watched both Penguindrum and Baccano in dub, and one thing I learned recently about Japanese is that you convey intensity via different ways, and there's almost no stressing of the words/syllables: each syllable is given the same weight and stress. So maybe lines that sound cool or more held-back/detached in Japanese become exaggerated and heavy-handed in English delivery. *ponders* |
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| Deleted User | Jan 20 2014, 06:22 PM Post #16 |
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Deleted User
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i got that, again though, it was just too overbearing for me. they were too stupid for me to take seriously or enjoy or appreciate on any level |
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| Seoulbowz | Jan 20 2014, 08:10 PM Post #17 |
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Supergeil
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rofl, I knew you would hate Isaac and Miria. |
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| Skylin | Jan 23 2014, 04:58 PM Post #18 |
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2 Lewd 4 U
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I also disliked Isaac and Miria. And I explained on Skype why I said what I said. I didn't mean anything personal by it. |
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| simplechild | Feb 6 2014, 12:08 PM Post #19 |
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My only feel is murder
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YOU'RE SLACKING. |
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| Deleted User | Feb 6 2014, 01:13 PM Post #20 |
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Deleted User
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i've seen through 4, just need to get off my ass. calm down dimplemild, you're on the shit list anyway because you won't join my mafia |
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12:06 PM Jul 13
