Air Gear

May. 12th, 2010 11:06 am
mcity: (Default)
Ikki is your typical shonen anime protagonist. He's a spiky-haired teenage boy with distinctive clothing and an attitude who gets caught up in events bigger than him and is hornier than a bull on Viagra during springtime.

Okay, maybe not so typical.

Air Gear(YouTube/Google sign-in req'd) revolves around a special type of compact electric engine, capable of generating great power. Assuming it's already gone through the usual "pornography" and "'military" applications, the denizens of whatever future world have decided to put them in Air Trek brand skates, which look suspiciously like the two-wheeled numbers from Jet Grind Radio. Actually, you remember how Avatar was like Pocahontas/Dances with Wolves/Ferngully* turned up to eleven? That's what Air Gear is to JGR, complete with similar music, ludicrous clothing, and absurd amount of the police force's budget being spent on stopping teenage hoodlums. For some reason, the guy in charge of these matters is a spiky-haired bishonen with no proper shirt who keeps a creepy dude in a designer straitjacket in his back seat.

I am not making this up.

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

There's a guy whose hair, even by anime standards, seems to have been made up of Lucky Charms.

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

Specifically, Orange Moons, which I know are not Looky Charms and never have been, thank you very much. He even has a British accent.

A lot of the secondary characters have surprisingly detailed faces and outfits, even though some wear masks. It's like the director went "yes, these are unique characters", now we're going to put them in hoods and masks and doggie helmets to save the animation budget".

Ikki meets a large-lipped older Eastern European lady who's gone when he returns, making it a Big-Lipped Russian Woman moment.

And the catalyst for all these events? Ikki tries to get a look at the girls he's living with while they're in the shower after he maybe-accidentally grabbed one's boobs. Frustrated in his efforts to see the tomboyish one molesting her sister-still not making this up-he wanders around the house before he comes across a room filled with secrets and Air Treks. So he steals some and ends up at a meet where a girl is sexually assaulted over stickers. she doesn't seem to mind. Of course, she may be insane. I've only watched two episodes, so it's not clear yet.

It's that kind of show.

*Isn't it amazing how James Cameron was somehow able to rip off three totally original movies simultaneously?
mcity: (Default)
Photobucket

The Princess and the Frog

You know how Disney animation fans have been complaining about everything for the past decade or so? Hannah Montana, all those remakes, the lack of a proper Disney Princess movie, etc.? This movie seems to have been specifically designed to shut them up.

Stop me if this sounds familiar: Young woman, well-realized historical setting, charismatic villain, lots of recognizable voices, magic, pretty dresses, awesome music, animal sidekicks. Yeah, this is pretty much a quintessential Princess movie, and a good one. (Strangely, Tiana's just a regular girl, not a princess.)

There's been a lot of controversy over the race issues in this movie, all of which are completely unfounded. This is not to say it takes place in some sort of magical non-race setting; when Tiana gets on the tram, she sits at the back, and when she goes to a party, she's serving food. There's a few more subtle bits, including one I would've missed entirely without TVTropes.

Keith David does a really, really good job as Doc. Facilier. It's clear he's enjoying himself immensely, and so is everyone else. And you will too.

James Cameron's Avatar

Oh dear.

Avatar is not trying to be original. James Cameron pretty much states as much. What is is is well-realized. It's a big, pretty, absurdly detailed movie you've more or less seen before. Heck, George Lucas has pretty much admitted to cribbing everything in A New Hope except the gorram lightsabers, the writing was about the same quality, and look at how well that's regarded.

And now spoilery raegfrothing.

Read more... )
mcity: (Default)


"Basic jist: girl proposes to boy, boy rejects, girl freaks out. The animation quality is amazing."
mcity: (Default)

It's a Pixar movie. That should be all the recommendation you need.

I've spent the past few hours looking for a flaw, and the only one I can think of was that I didn't see it with enough people in the theatre. I'm man enough to admit I'm still wibbling. If you know anything about animation at all, the cloth physics alone should leave your jaw on the floor.

tl;dr: See it.

2025

S M T W T F S

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 26th, 2025 10:46 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios