Downtown Khazan: Ice Cold Utopia

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Who's gonna torment themselves watching the Netflix Baki series?

Sure, why not.

[Sharpandpointies]

Sure, why not.

...I owe you a thread. Sorry, things got rather busy this weekend and I lost track. I'll work on it tomorrow during the day and post it tomorrow night alongside my other post.

[Sharpandpointies]

Loving Kengan. 'Setsuna uses this special, secret technique that is totally awesome...only he's already so badly messed up, it's not going to be enough.'

So many tropes overturned... ^_^

Also liking the little bit about leg traps. "Oh, this isn't actually exclusive to the Niko style and doesn't have a name, it's just a little detail you ought to look into.'

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

...I owe you a thread. Sorry, things got rather busy this weekend and I lost track. I'll work on it tomorrow during the day and post it tomorrow night alongside my other post.

No worries at all, from what I've read so far the waiting is worth it.

[Len Ikari145]

The most recent chapter of Kimetsu no Yaiba was almost pure hype. Seeing most of the current generation of pillars coming together to fight the Big Bad of the series legit gave me some chills.

The page when they're all intoning their attacking forms had me being like:"ooooooooohhh"

And then the reveal that SIKE INTERDIMENSIONAL FORTRESS BATTLE ARC had me like "OOOOOOAAAAAAAAA"

This series does stakes and hard won fights like almost no other. And the cast are all really likeable.

And series protagonist Tanjirou is just... like the best boy.

Speaking of which, are you excited for Ufotable's anime adaptation?

[Nik Hasta]

Speaking of which, are you excited for Ufotable's anime adaptation?

They're a good, if quite new, studio with high production values.

I'll be interested to see how they translate the artwork. One thing I know will bother me is that I think the original manga uses light very specifically and I'm concerned that won't translate as well.

If we get to the Upper Moon Six fight, I will be very happy because that fight was seriously amazing and I'd love to see it animated.

[FistofIron]

Hell’s Paradise: Jigokuraku continues to rock. Shion continues to be one of my favorite characters in this series. What he did was pure manliness.

I also love all the creature designs. The range from cool to rather disturbing.

[Siriel]

They're a good, if quite new, studio with high production values.

I'm not sure I can really agree on the good part. The Fate adaptations at least showed that they seem to really struggle in understanding what they ought to focus on, being basically all flash no substance, while Zestiria just plain wasn't very good.

(Also new is kind of a strange term to use, Ufotable has been around for 18 years by this point. 15 if you only start counting with the release of their first produced anime.)

[The Chou Lives]

: Looks Up commmentary If him as GM/ game mid on the other sites. Smile. Cue Christmas Time is here.:

People, like me. My style of doing things.

: Shining Smile then.:

Do not get me wrong, you guys are my fav online community. Just yeah. I am spreading, like a viral net thing, of goodness ( Trying for that anyway.)

[Yun Lao]

Well, just now found out about the manga known as Blaster Knuckle. A tale of a man taking on the KKK.

...If the KKK are man eating demons in disguise and our hero uses a gauntlet/shotgun hybrid with superhuman boxing to kill em. O_o

I remember that one. Short but a goodie.

[Nik Hasta]

I'm not sure I can really agree on the good part. The Fate adaptations at least showed that they seem to really struggle in understanding what they ought to focus on, being basically all flash no substance, while Zestiria just plain wasn't very good.

(Also new is kind of a strange term to use, Ufotable has been around for 18 years by this point. 15 if you only start counting with the release of their first produced anime.)

I don't know Fate well enough to comment but I was thinking in terms of animation quality myself.

Everything looks nice.

[FistofIron]

The most recent chapter of Kimetsu no Yaiba was almost pure hype. Seeing most of the current generation of pillars coming together to fight the Big Bad of the series legit gave me some chills.

The page when they're all intoning their attacking forms had me being like:"ooooooooohhh"

And then the reveal that SIKE INTERDIMENSIONAL FORTRESS BATTLE ARC had me like "OOOOOOAAAAAAAAA"

This series does stakes and hard won fights like almost no other. And the cast are all really likeable.

And series protagonist Tanjirou is just... like the best boy.

Dude I keep seeing that manga pop up. I’m gonna give it a read.

[Siriel]

I don't know Fate well enough to comment but I was thinking in terms of animation quality myself.

Everything looks nice.

What I'm talking about is part of animation. To take UBW as an example while the movements themselves were generally fluid, they made heavy use of cutting away in the middle of action to show empty space where nothing was happening, had characters not feel any force from trading blows and had very bad shot composition, choreography and consistency.

To take particularly memorable examples, there's Berserker's initial appearance. Berserker is a 250cm or so giant built like a truck who's meant to be extremely menacing. His first appearance is him in the background with Shirou's head in the foreground taking up most of the screen, completely destroying the sense of intimidation - they managed to make him look tiny instead.

But probably the grand champion of my issues with it, both in how blatant it was and being at such a climactic moment, was the fight between Shirou and Gilgamesh. In a part of it, they start off around 10 meters away from each other. Then Shirou starts running forward, continues to go forward as he avoids Gilgamesh's attacks, and when it shows them both again they're further apart than when they started despite Gilgamesh not moving an inch.

That's why I said it was all flash and no substance; the movements look nice and the animators generally did a good job*, but somebody was blatantly asleep at the wheels. The more you break down their scenes, the more obvious the sloppiness becomes, and that's a problem if they try to adapt a story where the details of the fights are important.

Of course that's not to say they're on the level of the worse moments of Dragon Ball or anything.

*: Well, I hate the side-mouths they used, but that's partially personal taste.

[Nik Hasta]

Dude I keep seeing that manga pop up. I’m gonna give it a read.

YISS BOI

It's a lot of fun

[Lord Falcon]

Loving Kengan. 'Setsuna uses this special, secret technique that is totally awesome...only he's already so badly messed up, it's not going to be enough.'

So many tropes overturned... ^_^

Also liking the little bit about leg traps. "Oh, this isn't actually exclusive to the Niko style and doesn't have a name, it's just a little detail you ought to look into.'

I've been really digging the Niko style and Master Niko as a martial arts master in general over the later half of this manga. The author blends in the crazy ridiculous stuff with small, important real-world fight details to create something better than the sum of its parts. The fact that the ultimate techniques of the Niko style are not actually the most powerful techniques, but rather ones that can be reliably pulled off even if the practitioner is fighting in less than ideal conditions and circumstances, was a major plus point for me.