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[Radio Controlled]

I thought the Godzilla anime was pretty good, and have only seen positive reviews of it.

[Reelya]

Well it's only rocking a 6.1 on imdb, and the reviews aren't all that great for it. The consensus seems to be that the effects are great, story sucks. People who loved the effects gave it high scores, those scoring on story gave it low scores.

Even one of the 7/10 reviews mostly talks about how terrible the writing was, and that he only managed to sit there long enough to finish the movie because it's got Godzilla in it, and the parts with Godzilla made the rest bearable - just. My other friend didn't even manage to finish it.

[Jopax]

Great story in a Godzilla movie? That I'd like to see :V

[Radio Controlled]

I found the story to be serviceable enough. You do rather notice it's only the first part of a trilogy, but at no point was I bored or did I find the characters to be too annoying. I'd happily rewatch it, and probably will with some mates in the near future.

[Tack]

I read the synopsis of that Death March one and I swear it was like someone just grabbed a checklist of things a popular anime these days has and went by the numbers.

I was iffy too, and I read the reviews and basically the two that jumped out at me were:
"I've read the manga, and if they don't fuck it, it should turn out to be another Log Horizon"
and
"Yeah we see the whole harem angle but he's "actually a 30 year old dude" so his disinterest in the 15 year olds swinging off his tunic is kinda refreshing"

So I'm going into it with open expectations.

[Cruxador]

Gen Urobuchi, the Michael Bay of the anime world.

I kekked but that wouldn't be my first comparison. I'd say he has more in common with Abrams or even Whedon.  He relies on melodrama but he has some good tricks, even if he over uses them.

And nobody in Japan even went to see this movie! $3 million at the box office, compared to $355 million for "Your Name".

To verify fair, though, that was a massive success. 

My guess is that Japanese people view Godzilla movies as so fucking common that nobody is even interested. It's the shit your grandparents are into, there were 31 previous Godzilla movies, so this one is like "Transformers 32" direct-to-DVD territory. "Wow there's an anime of Godzilla now" barely raised a peep of interest in Japan, but to Netflix, that shit's like manna from heaven.

My thought is not so much that a godzilla fandom doesn't exist as just that it's very separate from the anime fandom. So people who are normally into anime react as you say, but people who like kaiju movies are somewhat disgusted at the implication that they're in the same category as anime otaku and/or that they apparently don't merit something with the budget for live action. And it's not big enough to do the marvel thing and get mainstream success. You know, like Shin Godzilla.

[EnigmaticHat]

If Kaiju movies were done in Japan, Pacific Rim wouldn't have been a big success there.

[MrRoboto75]

Man, I wish I bought those Pacific Rim heroclix.  I hope the sequel means another set but I really doubt it.

[JoshuaFH]

One of my favorite Vocaloid composers, PinocchioP, released a new video recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M92c6pl10u0&t=0s

I think it goes without saying that I love it.

[Tack]

Unfortunately today I have discovered I do not enjoy vocaloids.
Maybe I need more immersion.

[Reelya]

A lot of it depends on the composer.

e.g. I find almost all of the independent-made Vocaloids completely unlistenable, but I like the stuff done by professional musicians. Note the difference is than in these ones the voices are composed by professionals, and they have professional rock bands backing the singing, rather than some teenage "composer" sitting at home doing everything on a PC. Vocaloid is a set of music-production software. But literally anyone can grab the software and start making songs. Saying Vocaloid is bad is like saying guitar is bad because there are a bunch of bad guitarists on youtube.

If you buy tickets to the concerts or buy any of the games related to Vocaloid, this is the music you get:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t58xKQYStMU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O17f3lB7BFY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_LJXhQLwrk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmf9JkedPR8

I'm not really in touch with all the stuff happening with Vocaloid (all these videos are pretty old and well known), apparently there were over 200,000 songs recorded, and that was years ago, but I know there's a huge quality gulf between the professional stuff and the amateur stuff.

[Solifuge]

Yeah, what Reelya said. Vocaloids ain't all bad! They're basically an instrument; it's all about how they're used.

Not to change topic, but RE: Anime: I am really enjoying Net-Juu no Susume lately! As someone who spent a year or two playing Ragnarok Online, and building those kind of dual online-offline relationships with some of the folks I met, it resonates with my experiences in a cozy nostalgic sort of way. Not to mention the schlubby 30-something hikkikomori, who barely drags herself out of the house long enough to go to the convenience store for microwave dinners. I was this person once, too. ><;

Not too far in, but also quite enjoying Houseki no Kuni. It's the first fully-3D anime that managed to impress me with it's visuals, from the colored light filtering through the characters' sad androgynous space rock hair, to the spooky mandelbrot wormhole from whence the vaguely hindu statue-alien-hunter-amalgamates descend, to the fluid animation of Cinnabar's mercury, and so on and so on. Also, despite it being a solid and emotional metaphor for dissatisfaction with parts of yourself that you wish you could change... there is a small geology dork inside me that can't help but nerd out when they get all torn up about their mohs hardness rating and durability and all that.

Finally watched all through Boku no Hero, and I think there's a similar theme, RE: heroes with their innate powers just making them naturally more or less able to do certain things, and how the characters all struggle within that structure to do their best. All-Might's situation is a pretty neat deconstruction of a Superman style hero too, with his whole wasting illness and slowly vanishing superpowers thing. Noticing a lot of western Individualism and Pulling Yourself Up By The Bootstraps themes too, which kinda matches the superhero genre it's pulling from? Looking forward to seeing where it goes in the next season.

Next up, hoping to delve into Made in Abyss, the remake of Kino's Journey, and maaaaaybe Re:Creators.

Honorary Mention: Kemono Friends is officially the most genuinely cute take on the post-apocalypse that I have ever seen, and I can't say I was expecting that. (Gakkougurashi might be up there too, if it wasn't all a big kawaii-ass ruse.)

[Reelya]

Don't forget to give Inuyashiki a look if you haven't, too.

[Max™]

"Robo grandpa? The fuck is this... oh wait, Gantz dude made it? Ha, fuck it, let's rock."

Houseki no Kuni is great, Franxx has been fun, more Nanatsu no Taizai is never a bad thing.

[JoshuaFH]

Unfortunately today I have discovered I do not enjoy vocaloids.
Maybe I need more immersion.

I would jump to the defense of vocaloids, but I frequently ask myself why I like them so much. Sometimes I'll go into my vast personal collection I have downloaded, and I'll start one up, and I'll ask myself "Why do I like having a modified Microsoft Sam sing me chiptunes in a language I can't understand?". Please allow me to use your comment to soapbox about my pet theories.

Reelya postulated that it depends on the composer, and gave some examples, though one of those examples was Ievan Polkka which is a stupid meme song, but his point stands. I have a feeling though that your post was in direct response to the link I had posted on the previous page, which was composed by PinocchioP, and this is purely my subjective opinion, but he's one of the best Vocaloid composers in existence, and if he can't win you over, I doubt anyone can.

So I've spent some time today thinking about it, and I suppose I can only speak for myself personally, but I think the strength of Vocaloid lies in its narrative possibilities. The music varies wildly in quality, and honestly if you're listening to the music raw with no contextual backing, it is easily the weakest part of the Vocaloid experience, even for the very good songs. I think the real strength lies in it's ability to be used as the backdrop for a wide range of stories and ideas. You see, the Vocaloids are just computer voice programs, but they have fictional characters they're attached to. They're canonically "Robotic Idols" or somesuch, but that's irrelevant, what IS relevant is that those baseline characters can be used for whatever the creators' songs need them to be. There are songs about them as ghosts, as murderers, as crazy stalkers, as friendly kami, animal hotel owners, as lovers singing a duet with eachother, as frenemies, as King and Queens, or servants and maids, or as personifications of the seven deadly sins, just a huge wide variety of creative roles that they've placed these characters into. I'd say this is where the largest strength of Vocaloid lies. The comparison to guitars was apt, but not simply in the musical sense of infinite possibility, but also in the storytelling perspective.

The Vocaloids have been described as "Immortal Teen Idols", though in the original context that was because they never grow old like actual teen idols, but the extra dimension to that statement is that they're immortal because they're simple templates for people's imaginations, which will always be churning out new and interesting things, and can use the Vocaloids as the instruments to do so with.

Please don't think I'm trying to change your mind, I think that'd be disrespectful of me, as I believe there are simply visceral elements to some things that are simply unpalatable to some people, and I don't think for a second that I can convince someone to overcome their own gut instincts on a matter. This is just what I've been stewing on today.