Board 8 > Gauntlet Crew Ranks Anime Movies II

(+) Yeah! (+)

PrinceKaro posted...

Yuasa shows great inexperience as a director here, you can't just throw out random plot points to be weird and expect it to work in any way.
You can't take a bunch of random images and call it a story. You can't take the scribbles of a lobotomized monkey and call it art. You can't take LSD and call it creativity.

worst take of the contest so far imo. I feel like The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl is gonna end up dropping soon for the same reason.

This movie just completely blew me away in a way nothing else on the list really managed to come close to (except my #2). It's just an incredible, trippy, surreal thrill ride from start to finish. Even when it slows down, it never halts its celebration of the weird and wild.

I know some peope weren't as interested in the plot once it's inside the whale, but the sudden change of pace and genre flip only made me more invested in the movie. They suddenly become their own society, where the rules of the society are discarded, and they can be everything and anything they want to be.

On top of that, Yuasa never hesitates to break the rules of cinema, the laws of physics, or whatever he feels like, which only makes me love the film that much more. The film is whatever he wants it to be with no restrictions.

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I feel very bad for Johnbobb and JONA that I didn't make the time to participate now because what the fuck
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I hate missing out on ranking projects I have even a small amount of interest in for that exact reason- well not so much feeling bad for the rankers whose films I could have boosted, but rather feeling bad for the ranking itself. It feels less legitimate when one or two people can influence an entire list's outcome with a vote at one pole or another. In short, ya should've participated. You and Snakes both. And Ermine, but that was a pipedream apparently. What happened to gauntlet crew recently? Are these projects just not interesting enough to participate in, or are the deadlines too strict, or is there just too much going on in your lives or in the world as a whole that some of you just can't be bothered?

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probably a little of everything.

Personally, I think we should have stuck with a size of around ~30.

It gives less variance but it also seems significantly less daunting of a task(1 move a day for a month).

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Ermine06/15/2020
It's too much commitment for me at this point
[11:52 PM]
Even with something like anime where I have a slight bit more interest in than the usual topics we do
[11:53 PM]
I wasn't the biggest fan of Bebop, but it was definitely doable in terms of length of project
[11:54 PM]
40 movies puts it at around like 80 hours and that's ignoring time spent doing write ups as well
[11:54 PM]
Without certain specific things to excite me, it's just not feasible for me
[11:56 PM]
Especially so since I'm pretty picky on what I enjoy
[11:56 PM]
Spending 80 hours to maybe get... a few hours of enjoyment is not worth it.

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Basically it's not worth 80 hours of my life and maybe enjoy a couple hours of it?

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The next project I know is 40 films (partially because it's a subgenre not done yet and ALSO becuase it's my first list ever) but I would understand if beyond that, people wanted to start dropping lists down to 30


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GenesisSaga posted...

is there just too much going on in your lives or in the world as a whole that some of you just can't be bothered?

Yeah pretty much this. Coronavirus definitely put me in a funk at the start which almost never happens to me and on top of that I help run a nearly full time business at this point with write-ups, shipping, & customer service stuff. So it's tougher these days.

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((if you're ever doing musicals again I'd like to join as a guest if that's okay))

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19. The Castle of Cagliostro

Jona: 4
Inviso: 14
Red: 16
Charon: 21
Karo: 25
Genny: 26
Johnbobb: 34

Total: 140

Jona: You can definitely see Miyazakis blueprints all over this with the environments, the plane scenes, Lady Clarisse looking exactly like Nausicaa and just how the movie feels with it being thrilling and fun. The characters are all likable but its definitely weird seeing how they are here compared to everything else in the Lupin III franchise. The animation is fantastic stuff with some amazing action scenes. This still really holds up well.

Inviso: I never really watched Lupin III that much when it aired onwas it Adult Swim? Adult Swim used to just show anime, if I recall correctly. That being said, I did NOT realize that Lupin III was as old as the late 70s. It does NOT look its age. I mean, we watched Nausicaa for the Ghibli ranking, which was half a decade later, and this movie looked, in my opinion, similar in animation quality. Or at least as similar as you could expect from a more comedy-oriented anime. All that being said, I really enjoyed this film. It was goofy and it was lively and it managed to put together a decent heist/mystery plot, all in the course of about a hundred minutes.

Lupin himself is a perfect example of the lovable rogue archetype, especially because he manages to pull of that fine line of being heroic, without being TOO heroic that his heroism feels unrealistic in comparison to his thievery. Its just interesting to watch a charming dude out-maneuver a hi-tech security system and an army of goons, regardless of how incompetent said goons may be. And compared to him, the Count is just the perfect example of a sleazy scumbag villain. Hes so clearly just trying to get power, and seeing him meet his end as a result of his own greed is just so satisfying. Oh! And giving Zenigata a hero moment by revealing the counterfeiting scam was a nice capper to give him some positives, even if Lupin escaped once again. This was just a really fun action/adventure movie, and it was really good to have such a good film so early in the list.

Red: You know this movie is old because its partially a quest to save a princess the main character apparently became infatuated with when she was, well, way too young. Once you look past the creepy part, its kind of a fun heist turned do-gooder movie to stop a villain with literal ninja guards from continuing to rule the world with his really good fake money. Granted, knowing its counterfeit that easy should mean everyone else knows it has no value either, but well that slide a bit for plot purposes.

Charon: While this film does show its age as it's pretty clearly from a larger body of work (even if I haven't ever watched it), it's still a charming older film in some ways. I thought the villain was pretty lame but I liked all the heroes here and I can understand how this property has such a great reputation and history associated with it. I wanted to like it more honestly, but perhaps I really am dead-set against falling in love with movies of a certain age. However I do respect the movie for the influence it had on the animation world, in terms of being an influencer and a career-starter for many of the most important names in animation of the last 50 years.

Karo: What It Is:
A film adaptation of the Lupin the Third series that is notable for being the directorial debut of one Hayao Miyazaki, and is often (incorrectly) attributed by people as the first Studio Ghibli film.

What I Think:
It is something that was very good for its time, as is often cited. But the key phrase here is 'for its time'.
The animation seems cheap compared to Miyazaki's other works, not to mention modern anime in general. The characters are one-note and dumb, none worse than the female lead who is basically just a simpering geisha blob who waits around crying for someone to save her badly-drawn ass.
For full enjoyment of this film you really need to like the Lupin characters (I don't), otherwise it is just a second-rate heist movie that nobody would give a shit about if it wasn't made by the director of Spirited Away.

Score 59/100

Genny: I grew up with Lupin the Third, so I was really excited to see Castle of Cagliostro for the first time only for vcharon and Netflix to double down and deal me the deadliest of low blows. The English dub for this, and I can't stress this enough, is terrible. I could get over the fact that none of the characters sound like how I imagine they should if only each and every one of them didn't refer to the man whose name is Arsne Lupin III as "Wolf" as though that's his name. Yes lupin is French for wolf, but that's not how language works: you don't translate proper nouns! That'd be like if I went to Japan and introduced myself as semiprecious gemstone instead of "Amber". Now that we've got that out of the way this movie was alright. It's got all the hijinks of your typical high-stakes Lupin adventure, and you can definitely see that early Miyazaki influence in the details such as backgrounds and facial expressions (especially that dog). That said the movie as a whole hasn't aged particularly well, particularly the female ideologies.

Johnbobb: This movie just didn't really make me feel any sort of way. The best thing I can really say about it is that, like with Mimic and Cronos for Guillermo del Toro, I can see how this led to Miyazaki's much better films down the line, even if I wasn't grabbed by this one personally. It's fun enough, and I'm sure it was great for its time, but I ultimately found it to be pretty forgettable.


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Inviso posted...

Quick aside: regardless of your feelings on the two movies, can we just give a big shout out to both Castle of Cagliostro and Memories for sticking it out into the top half, even though every other pre-2010 movie has been eliminated by this point?

Welp, I jinxed THAT. XD

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PrinceKaro posted...

For full enjoyment of this film you really need to like the Lupin characters

Interesting, a lot of Lupin fans don't like Cagliostro because the characterizations were changed so much.
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For me it's a combo of busy+deadline. I was supposed to start when I got back from Japan but I forgot, and when there's other ongoing content I know I like, it becomes hard to spend very limited free time on a ranking, where chances are I won't like a decent amount.
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Outlier:

Johnbobb: 226
Jona: 190
Karo: 179
Inviso: 178
Genny: 170
Red: 159
Charon: 129

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Really starting to dread Inviso's #36 and #34 given our general disparity in this list so far. If it's another member of my top 5 I don't even know what to think.

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#36 and #31*, my bad

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18. Napping Princess

Charon: 14
Inviso: 15
Red: 15
Johnbobb: 21
Karo: 22
Genny: 23
Jona: 30

Total: 140

Charon: A cute movie with a unique idea of telling two stories at the same time. Both stories are interesting and it's fun to see how the characters in this dream world correspond with those from the outside world, since they were all created by the main character's father, it's his interpretation of these characters that's presented to the viewer. I will admit I was surprised that Ancien was actually his wife instead of Kokone the entire time, but at the same time I felt the end part of the movie got a little strange and perhaps didn't stay true to itself. It's like, at one point it's suggested other characters (the guy she was traveling with, Morio) can enter the dreams if they're both asleep. But later we see characters act like they're Kokone's dream and are from the outside world. I don't know, it got hard to follow at times but I still think it had a pretty strong narrative.

Inviso: This was a solid movie. It had the kind of old school, youthful adventure feel to it (complete with sinister corporate businessman villain) that you would find in an eighties movie, and I enjoyed that. I yelled at Kokone SO many times for making DUMB fucking decisions, but Ill give her a pass, because some of the things that happened in the movie reinforced her bizarre belief in a fantasy realm, so I cant really blame her for certain aspects of her stupidity. And honestly? For the MOST part, I found the shift between reality and dream sequences to be handled well. The dream sequences did a nice job of unfolding the backstory so it didnt feel like we were getting his with a boring, exposition dump.

Howeverthe LAST dream sequence was a bit much. You go into it and PARTS of it make sense. The villain getting his comeuppance for pulling some shady shit is fine. The problem is that going into that dream sequence, I had NO idea what ANY of the symbolism in the dream was supposed to represent. Suddenly, Kokone is captured and gets away, and her dad is piloting a mech to fight a colossus that was never REALLY explained well enough. And then we cut back to reality and Kokone just fell from a tower and her dad caught her and then a self-driving motorcycle shows up to pull a balloon underneath them and save the day. Its really weird because of just how LONG that dream sequence is, and it ultimately feels completely disconnected from the plot. Its not longer explaining the past, but fictionalizing the presentin a weird way that didnt make sense. Thats the one off-putting thing that sank this movie a bit in my estimation.

Red: Parallel worlds? Dream world with impact on the real world? Strange coincidence that just happens to coincide with the dream world with sleepwalking or something? The answer to which of these is happening is never quite all that clear. All so that a company can obtain a really good self-driving car system. Were also left where both worlds are consistently left half-resolved and it is consistently less than satisfying. The twist of the dream being her mother was kind of touching if still strange looking back on it. Also, bad call betting on a sure thing like the 2020 olympics happening. Bet they never saw that coming.

Johnbobb: I really wasn't sure how I was gonna feel about them doing a modern Japanese remake of The NeverEnding Story but giving Atreyu a motorcycle and making Falkor into a giant mech were brilliant creative decisions, bravo.

Karo: What It Is:
A young girl saves the world via narcolepsy.

What I Think:
This is another one of those weird 'almost ghibli' films that have popped up over the last decade and one of the less notable.
So whenever the protagonist falls asleep, she enters a parallel dimension, and uses this power to stop the latest ipad technology from falling into the hands of generic corporate goons.
There is just something missing from this film that I can't quite put my finger on. I want to think this film is charming but I don't. I want to be interested in the story but I'm not. I want the movie to be good but it isn't.

Score: 63/100

Genny: Part of me thinks Charon picked Napping Princess just to tease me for dozing off during so many of these movies, and I must say he chose a poor time to test my endurance with this one... That's not to say it's a bad movie, it's just not as exciting as some of the other films on this list despite its fantasy world sharing the runtime with the world grounded in reality. I did not like the narrative device toward the end of the film when it seemed like the two worlds were merging because it made things confusing and more difficult to follow, yet the movie does another confusing rug-pull only to debunk it and show the aftermath of what really happened which befuddled me even more.

Jona: I thought this was going to be a coming-of-age story but ended up with something different. I wish I got the coming-of-age story instead. It felt like they were setting up for one too with Kokone wondering where to go for college and what to do during summer vacation. That ends up being important though and ends up being about Kokones dreams and them happening in real life. The dreams are easily the best part of the movie with those scenes being quite imaginative. The shenanigans with Shijima Motors on the other hand wasnt exactly the most thrilling. The reveal of the fate of Kokones mother fell flat for me. I found the soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura to be fine and fitting but also somewhat distracting since I wasnt expecting Yoko Shimomura. Some creative stuff here but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

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Man that's the closest we've had to a consensus all contest

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PrinceKaro posted...

Also, bad call betting on a sure thing like the 2020 olympics happening. Bet they never saw that coming.

Big oof

Johnbobb posted...

Man that's the closest we've had to a consensus all contest

Ha I literally just said something to a similar effect in Discord

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Outlier:

Johnbobb: 229
Jona: 202
Karo: 183
Inviso: 181
Genny: 175
Red: 162
Charon: 133

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I feel like I need to defend myself a bit. Part of it is me being bored to tears by some of the movies on this list sure (e.g. In This Corner of the World could probably knock me out even after I've had 5 McCafs, 3 Mango Loco Monsters, and one 5 Hour Energy for good measure), but Charon isn't completely blameless for his odd movie-watching decisions either. It be like "Hmm... I see you've been falling asleep right around 1 a.m. for the last 10 days straight... let's watch this 2+ hour movie at 11:30 p.m. then. What could possibly go wrong!?!?!??;?1!??!1?!!?"

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17. The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl

Johnbobb: 2
Jona: 7
Karo: 19
Red: 22
Genny: 25
Charon: 29
Inviso: 31

Total: 135

Johnbobb: My biggest takeaway from this entire anime list is how much I absolutely adore the works of Masaaki Yuasa, a man I had never heard of a few months ago (funny enough, I had actually seen the Devilman Crybaby series he made, and just didn't realize it until after seeing his films in this list). His art style is sloppy and surreal and just entirely unique, and I fucking love it. I don't even know how to find the words to describe what a master this guy is. After seeing four of his films on this list, I'm completely sold on him as a filmmaker and really want to make it a point to see everything else he puts out. As for NISWOG, I don't even know where to begin. It's like a dozen different, wildly unique movies squeezed into one, with only a slight thread of narrative cohesion between them, and I honestly just didn't want it to end. The night is too short, as it were.

Jona: The premise of this seems like something youd find in a Hollywood film with a guy going through a bunch of wacky events to get the girl. However, this just goes the extra mile and then some when it comes to delivering on those wacky events. There are so many random, enjoyable events that happen throughout the film that its hard to to even start giving examples. The animation is great and help match the frantic nature of the movie. The main male characters role can be summed up as I hope Kohai notices me but its just funny seeing what lengths hell go to make that happen. The ending of the movie is also pretty nice and a good contrast to the rest of the movie. The movie really evokes the message of living life to its fullest. What a ride.

Karo: What It Is:
A young woman has a night on the town and consumes way too much alcohol while everyone catches the coronavirus.

What I Think:
This is a very strange movie that is on the very 'out there' side of Yuasa's offerings, there are so so many 'what the fuck' kind of scenes, which range from cute to downright unpleasant.
It is probably a bit better if watched while as drunk as the movie's director, though it isnt totally without some merit when sober as some scenes can be very touching.

Score: 66/100

Red: This is one of those weird in a not bad way movies. I think a few do this better, and sometimes this movie is just weird and not enjoyable, including a strange adventure through an outdoor way too much effort used book sale. Everything kind of comes together in the end, but portions of the movie definitely make you prone to wanting to tune out because they simply arent as interesting as it seems to think it is. In keeping with the times, everyone spreads a virus because of course.

Genny: Despite the name of this film being The Night is Short, Walk On Girl, the titular night seemed to last forever. This was the last of three movies (so far) that we've had to break up into two separate sittings, though the primary reason for this one being broken was not my tiredness (though it was a factor), but an issue that came from trying to rewind. Suffice it to say it restarted and we were like 45 minutes in so that was a wrap. But I digress. Shaking up the status quo, the plot of this film is essentially a senpai trying desperately to get his kouhai to notice him while various hijinks ensue. That's... the whole movie. There's not a lot of plot really, just a lot of hilarious situations. It's a fun, lighthearted and very dynamic movie, but its lack of a cohesive plot lands it in the bottom half of the four films by the same director on this list.

Charon: Fairly unique, but also a bit too "much" at times, this film is guilty of what I feel a good many of these movies without a traditional plotline with a crisis in it are; too much filler that doesn't mean anything. I did find some of the antics of the guy funny, but at the same time I feel like the movie wanted me to root for him to get with this girl that he's creepily stalked for ever how long. I mean, this guy is definitely a creeper. There are also two female characters I got mixed up in this film and I didn't really understand what was going on because of them has such a minor role before she's seemingly randomly thrust into a more prominent role as a love interest for a more critical character. It's an okay change of pace movie for a project I guess, but the weird randomness and strange male protagonist are a bit disconcerting.

Inviso: Despite the short runtime, there really isnt a lot of positivity I can muster towards this film otherwise. The plot is basically divided into three segments: thirty minutes about a night out drinking, thirty minutes about a school fair, and thirty minutes about a wide-spread cold virus. Calling this a plot is REALLY generous. The thing is, you have this creeper weirdo whose sole character trait is being a creeper weirdo, and the object of his affections is an unflappable girl with no personality traits whatsoever. And there are just badly-animated shenanigans throughout the whole movie, as the creeper tries to admit his love to a girl who doesnt show any real emotion to ANY event going on around her. Everything in this movie just gets so unnecessarily chaotic, and its really dumb and hard to follow.

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Outlier:

Johnbobb: 248
Jona: 212
Inviso: 195
Karo: 185
Genny: 183
Red: 167
Charon: 145

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Well. Down to just two of my bottom 20 left. One of which I really did not like, and the other, while I didn't like it, it's far more of a "meh" movie than abject hatred.

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You know it's truly strange, but I can honestly see where both Johnbobb and Inviso are coming from. I myself am completely divided on Yuasa as a director. I think he has occasional strokes of chaotic genius that lends itself really well to certain stories (or lack thereof), and not so well for others. Mind Game had a plot, but the movie was at its best when it broke away from it. The Night is Short, Walk On Girl had a bunch of plot threads united ever so loosely by the actions of two characters, and that kind of hurt it because a cohesive narrative might have actually saved the movie from seeming like a bunch of random events barely strung together, and it could've brought significance to the other recurring characters. Yuasa has yet to strike that perfect balance for me, but ultimately I think that's okay. Until then I'm going to keep enjoying his efforts. So far I like half of his work. TNISWAG just ain't it chief.

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Night is Short I thought was a movie that was pretty good but not one of my favorites, so I guess this is probably around where I'd rank it if I'd watched the whole list probably?

The whole thing was a lot of fun, though it didn't help that I never stopped viewing it as Tatami Galaxy-lite. I never got as attached to the characters here as I did with Tatami, probably as a result of the shorter run-time. Also I didn't ever feel this movie really tied all of its themes together as completely as some of Yuasa's other works, which didn't help matters. Overall it was still a very fun movie with some interesting themes and ideas though and one I'd gladly recommend to others.
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:(

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Oh man someone put Night is Short in their bottom 10 ouchhh I think that's my second or third favourite on this whole list!

I'm beginning to think out of everyone here my taste is closest to John's...

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01. ???
02. ???
03. ???
04. ???
05. Angel's Egg
06. ???
07. ???
08. ???
09. Mind Game
10. The Wonderland
11. ???
12. ???
13. ???
14. Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters
15. Blood: The Last Vampire
16. ???
17. ???
18. Dead Leaves
19. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
20. ???
21. ???
22. ???
23. Napping Princess
24. Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade
25. The Night is Short, Walk On Girl
26. The Castle of Cagliostro
27. Vampire Hunter D
28. ???
29. Children of the Sea
30. Giovanni's Island
31. Liz and the Blue Bird
32. The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon
33. Miss Hokusai
34. Mirai
35. Appleseed
36. The Fantastic Adventures of Unico
37. In This Corner of the World
38. Fireworks
39. Phoenix 2772
40. Colorful

Not doing too bad. Kind of ready for my #28 to go, but I can understand why it's doing so well. I just wasn't feeling it personally. I would be happy if anything from my top 7 took it home, but I think only three have a real shot at it.

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Sheep007 posted...

Oh man someone put Night is Short in their bottom 10 ouchhh I think that's my second or third favourite on this whole list!

I'm beginning to think out of everyone here my taste is closest to John's...

hell yeah

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Johnbobb posted...

hell yeah

I like ridiculous trippy messes, what can I say?

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Sheep007 posted...

I like ridiculous trippy messes, what can I say?

man now I kind of want to do a surreal movie list

that'd be a hard sell though.

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Hard pass.

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Well the entire David Lynch filmography would have to be on that list.

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16. Mary and the Witch's Flower

Genny: 12
Johnbobb: 13
Karo: 14
Charon: 19
Inviso: 20
Red: 26
Jona: 28

Total: 132

Genny: As the flagship film for a spiritual successor to Ghibli, Mary and the Witch's Flower falls just a bit short of achieving that gravitas. Judging it on its own merits however it is quite good. The story follows a well meaning protagonist that only wants to help but can't seem to do anything right, and that's relatable. Of course, that all changes after she follows an adorably animated feline duo and happens upon a flower that gives her an affinity to magic and broom-flying. Now for the first time in her life she's gifted at something and so she revels in it, and again I can relate to this. However because she's a child and a bit nave she doesn't know who she can trust and ends up endangering those dear to her.

That's where Mary ceases to be relatable to me, and the main gripe I have with the movie. She clearly begins to doubt Mistress Mumblechook, and while she's backed herself into a bit of a corner she has a different option than throwing Peter under the bus: use her extremely potent magical ability to escape, and yet she doesn't take it. Unsurprisingly Peter is put in peril as a direct result of her actions and while she admits this and apologizes for it, I still think it was a dick move. I suppose without that sequence of events we wouldn't have been able to experience my favorite segment of the movie (the menagerie of experimental animals and their subsequent escape), but the point still stands. Another counterpoint to Mary: who the heck would throw away the last fly-by-night bulb? Not me, no sir-ee!

Johnbobb: In this movie (that isn't Spirited Away) a young girl (not Chihiro, the young girl from Spirited Away), stumbles into a magical world (not the magical world from Spirited Away) where she, through luck and happenstance, joins a magical institution full of bizarre beings (not the magical bath house from Spirited Away) run by a mean-spirited old witch (not Yubaba, the mean-spirited witch from Spirited Away). The young girl has to then save a young boy who is transformed into an animal (not Haku, the young boy who transforms into a dragon in Spirited Away) and some other transformation victims (not her pig-transformed parents, like in Spirited Away) while also surviving the giant gelatinous monster (not No-Face, from Spirited Away) that is wreaking havoc on the magical world before she's able to return to her own. Anyway, good movie.

Karo: What It Is:
What might happen if Hayao Miyazaki binge watched the Harry Potter movies.

What I Think:
This is a decent film that feels like a sellout to ghibli nostalgia designed to make money. All the people seem like almost-analogues of various ghibli characters, even down to meticulously copying Miyazaki's art style.
But this is no Totoro or Kiki, very little about the movie is memorable despite trying way way too hard to be whimsical in the manner of the famous anime studio.
It is kind of disappointing that the first movie Yonebayashi makes after forming his own studio is basically just 'notice me, Miyazaki-senpai'. I mean, why did you even leave ghibli in the first place?

Score: 74/100

Charon: If you asked me to name the safest film on this list, it would definitely be this one. In what I think a lot feel is an attempt to capture the old Studio Ghibli magic, this film is good... good enough, for sure. The biggest issue with this film for me is that it could have and should have been so much greater. While I still like it and feel it's an easy rewatch, part of me looks within and sees the flaws that a good film has which prevent it from being great. There are things like the main characters; why should we really care about them? There's not a ton of backstory or drive behind them. We learn scarcely little about Mary; there's just no arc to her character. Peter is just some kid who insults the protagonist; why should we care about him and the rescue? But I think the biggest issue for me was the world building. It built up this fabulous world we never get to really learn about. Mary's trip through the school is simply that; we never get to see her applying anything or taking part in the learning. She just passes through, and it all seems so sudden and I can't help but feel disappointed there wasn't more interaction with this interesting place. It would have been an easy top 10 for me if it just corrected these flaws.

Inviso: Watching this movie, my first instinct was that this was a Ghibli film, but I knew Marnie was the last of the OG Ghibli movies. Upon further review, it seems like this is the spiritual successor to a Studio Ghibli film, due to previous staff working on it. And it feels like it. Butit feels like one of the AVERAGE Ghibli movies. You know, like your Totoro or Kiki, where its not a BAD movie, but its just nothing all that special compared to some of the top tier films. The main character starts out as pretty unlikable, but then this movie turns into a lesser of what Id consider Coraline (mostly because the villains arent QUITE evil enough, and have the traditional, Ghibli style of not QUITE being irredeemable). I mean, its still interesting to see a sinister witchcraft school, and the animation is fascinating in the Ghibli stylebut I just didnt come out of this movie feeling it was any kind of memorable.

Red: Honestly early on I thought Id enjoy this movie a lot more than I did, but it really fails to expand in any way on the world its trying to build or the characters it instills. Instead of discovering anything about magic whatsoever, our main character is always fully limited by flowers of plot convenience. The villains are outright evil except this is completely brushed off at the end when get half redeemed because this movie just plays too nice. Not to mention they seem in charge of a big school of magic that never seems to have any life at all. Everything in this movie is left shallow, leaving a sour taste where you just feel this movie failed to deliver on any character, plot, or concept.

Jona: A perfectly acceptable Studio Ghibli film that isnt Studio Ghibli. It doesnt do anything thats outside the box of Ghibli but it does them pretty well.

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Outlier:

Johnbobb: 251
Jona: 224
Inviso: 199
Karo: 187
Genny: 187
Red: 177
Charon: 148

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Oh shit, I thought I was going to be on the lower end of the rankings for that one

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Yeah, that one is perfectly average in every way.

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Johnbobb posted...

Oh shit, I thought I was going to be on the lower end of the rankings for that one

At 13th really!?

Well I guess it's no less bizarre than me thinking I'd be one of the higher Castle of Cagliostro rankers. I mean given how you guys wrecked all the other older movies, I at least had a thought process behind it.

PrinceKaro posted...

This is a decent film ...
But this is no Totoro or Kiki,

PrinceKaro posted...

Upon further review, it seems like this is the spiritual successor to a Studio Ghibli film ... And it feels like it. Butit feels like one of the AVERAGE Ghibli movies. You know, like your Totoro or Kiki, where its not a BAD movie, but its just nothing all that special

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PrinceKaro posted...

Butit feels like one of the AVERAGE Ghibli movies. You know, like your Totoro or Kiki

I'm confused. Why are you using Miyazaki's two best movies as the standard for "average" Ghibli and saying "average Ghibli" like that's a bad thing?

...Wait, that's Inviso's write-up, I get it now.
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Ghibli Rankings still up there for worst results possible. Still disgusted by that.

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Spirited Away/Princess Mononoke/Grave of the Fireflies/*cough* Tales from Earthsea *coughcough* are the only Ghibli movies I think are truly amazing. The company has a bunch of very good films (Arrietty, Totoro, Kiki), but they're not standouts to me in comparison to the overall history of animated film.

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Honestly, we watched Ghibli and I was blown away by my top tier. But since then, we've watched two full lists of non-Ghibli anime movies, and while there has been some definite shit, I would have to say that my top three from anime 1, and my top four from anime 2 all outrank Spirited Away (which was my top movie from the Ghibli ranking).

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I'm not a massive Ghibli fan. Mononoke and Spirited Away are the only ones I really dig. They're all very pretty films, though.

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Inviso posted...

Spirited Away/Princess Mononoke/Grave of the Fireflies/*cough* Tales from Earthsea *coughcough* are the only Ghibli movies I think are truly amazing. The company has a bunch of very good films (Arrietty, Totoro, Kiki), but they're not standouts to me in comparison to the overall history of animated film.

...
........
Damnit Inviso you were speaking my language until you said that mess.

Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Grave of Fireflies are three of my top four. Tales from Earthsea may have been in my bottom four, I can't remember. Fun fact: I am actually READING an Earthsea novel for the first time currently, and for the record, the Sparrowhawk described in A Wizard of Earthsea is a far more interesting version than that Blandalf we got in that abomination of a film. It's really no wonder Ursula le Guin wanted to divorce herself from that adaptation. Still better than Game of Thrones season 8 though.

Darn you Google autocorrect

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15. Memories

Johnbobb: 10
Inviso: 13
Red: 14
Genny: 17
Charon: 23
Karo: 24
Jona: 24

Total: 125

Johnbobb: Not sure how to rate this. A spectacular film, followed by a solid shorter film, followed by a dull shortest film. I kind of wish I could just rank Magnetic Rose by itself because GODDAMN that was just superb. Stink Bomb was a surprisingly funny story giving how incredibly dark it was, and Cannon Fodder was an unfortunately accurate title and put me to sleep the first time I watched it.

Inviso: I dont know where this film will end up in my overall ranking, as Im watching everything in chronological order. But let it be known that if this film winds up sagging in my rankings, it is entirely because of the existence of Cannon Fodder. Both Magnetic Rose and Stink Bomb are great, and honestly, the two of those make up about the total runtime of a standard, ninety-minute movie. I could rewatch Memories and JUST watch those two without missing anything. Cannon Fodder just feels like a last-minute addition, because anthology movies need at least three stories to really work as a decent anthology.

Brief breakdown of the stories though. Magnetic Rose is a GREAT sci-fi/horror film. I know it fits more in the vein of Ghost Ship, a film whose only real claim to fame is an awesome opening sequence. But I think Magnetic Rose does the whole haunted ship thing better, by humanizing the characters more. Its one ghost, manipulating two guys (and killing two others who are less important), and thats all you need. You have the goofball who falls in love with a ghost and becomes a willing sacrifice after spending most of the movie fucking around and being unsafe. And then you have the more grounded of the pairing, who gets introduced as a family man with guilty over his daughters death. All of this comes together in a great way with extremely good animation.

Stink Bomb is a bit lower brow, but its funnier than Magnetic Rose. Really, the whole film couldve been solved if either those guards from the first tunnel thought to yell HEY, DONT COME ANY CLOSER! the second they realized Nobuo was the cause of the gas, or if he fucking listened to his grandmother. But its still a fun story. Guy turned himself into a walking, deadly stink bomb, and the military CANT fucking control him. Their weapons are useless, and hes on a fucking mission from God to deliver some paperwork to his boss. It turns into a complete comedy of errors, right down to the ending. Its likeMagnetic Rose is the standard horror movie, and Stink Bomb is your horror comedy. Both work, just for different reasons.

Cannon Fodder sucks. The animation is shit, the story ranges from bland to nonexistent, and I just dont give a shit to waste anymore words on it.

Red: This is a tough one to rank because it really is 3 very different movies collected in one. The first is a rather horrifying sci-fi event of an apparently haunted spacecraft where everybody for all purposes essentially dies. Yes, lost in space is dead. But it absolutely keeps you interested on just what is going on and what fate awaits all our characters. The second is, year appropriately, a guy that becomes a literal walking deadly virus/gas spewing dude toxic to all around him. He is the worst at maintaining social distancing. His horrifying trip borders on being a comedy, and was also rather entertaining to me. The last was the dud of the group and kept this movie down for me, we know its a cannon based town, they fire at an unknown enemy. But there isnt much payoff here to really make me feel much of anything for it.

Genny: 1 >> 2 >>>>> 3. I will say this of Memories: Had the entire movie been just the Magnetic Rose short it would have landed in my top ten most certainly, which is why I'm not a huge fan of ranking anthology-type films, where the whole must be judged by the sum of its parts rather than the individual components that comprise it. Magnetic Rose is everything I love in the science fiction and thriller genres wrapped up in a concise 44-minute package and garnished with a lovely little bow of existential horror. The action and psychological mind games are reminiscent of Perfect Blue (which makes a lot of sense considering who wrote this short), but the general atmosphere is more like that of Cowboy Bebop- specifically Toys in the Attic. My favorite moment by far comes in retrospect: the moment when Zeintz fails to catch the music box figurine was some excellent foreshadowing to how Emily dies, and that haunting revelation that he contributed to her death by not setting realistic limitations for her is worthy of a chef's kiss.

I truly don't have much to say about the other two. Stink Bomb is fun, but lacks depth and emotional resonance, and Cannon Fodder is slow-paced and esoteric. I just felt bored with the latter and disappointed with the former. Stink Bomb's protagonist might be the most dimwitted lead character in anything I've watched since The Little Mermaid, but unlike Ariel his antics are at least entertaining until they overstay their welcome. After a certain point I just wished he'd stop succeeding at escaping death and/or detainment because it was no longer hilarious so much as tedious; and I still don't understand how he managed to get into that suit by the end. It's better than the last short of course, which I didn't understand at all and am more inclined to call pretentious than subtle.

Charon: I think if this was entered as Magnetic Rose only, I could have ranked this just a bit higher (it's still relatively short, but I truly feel it's masterfully done). The first episode is definitely the standout of the group. In a list that lacks horror and psychological tension, this was a much welcome surprise when I watched it. The visuals are enveloping and haunting and the story, while simple, is very concise and they do an immaculate job of drawing you in with such little time. The other two episodes would be the reason this drops down a bit, as I try to rank this based on the entire project as a whole rather than just one third of it. I mean Stink Bomb was fine, I guess. A bit Looney Tunes in nature I think. Cannon Fodder is just kind of... well, fodder. Nothing much happens and it isn't super interesting, despite the world at first capturing my attention. They don't really do anything with it. I never really understood the connection made the three episodes; I don't see anything that makes them a complete piece.

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Karo: What It Is:
A scifi anthology movie featuring three segments based on short stories of Katsuhiro Otomo.

What I Think:
'Magnetic Rose' is by far the strongest segment, the incomparable Satoshi Kon was involved in this scene and it shows. The guy really likes his dream/illusion stories.
'Stink Bomb' is a stupid story about this guy who turns into a living chemical weapon that for some reason doesn't affect him and everyone's attempts to stop him are as inept as Trump trying to stop the coronavirus and I guess this is supposed to be funny or whatever.
'Cannon Fodder' had some potential with the world they had created, but it felt that by the end they had done just about nothing with it other than make some vague point about the futility of war, and I was disappointed greatly.
With such a large variation in the quality of the segments, I can't really recommend this movie as a whole. Maybe just watch the first part and call it good.

Score: 60/100

Jona: This is hard to rank due to this movie being three very different parts. The first part is just fantastic and has a great spooky atmosphere. The hallucinations are so fascinating to watch and the reveal of the fate of Heintzs daughter is quite emotional. The second part is a lighter affair despite all the deaths in it. Its a bit too long for the joke it makes but at the same time, its pretty funny seeing what length are gone to stop Nobuo. The music is pretty great in the segment too. The third one didnt do much for me story-wise but it looked good and I liked that it looked like it was one take. The movie as a whole is pretty enjoyable despite the contrast in segments.

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Outlier:

Johnbobb: 256
Jona: 233
Inviso: 201
Karo: 196
Genny: 189
Red: 178
Charon: 156

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Yeah, if not for Cannon Fodder, I think Memories would've made my top 10. MAYBE. I could see myself ranking it as high as eighth in a "Cannon Fodder"-free universe. At the very least, it would've made it to 11th.

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"Magnetic Rose" would've knocked Angel's Egg out of my top 5. "Magnetic Rose" + "Stink Bomb" combo might have barely scratched my top ten. "Cannon Fodder" really holds Memories back. I just didn't get the significance of it in relation to the other shorts. At least Wikipedia seems to suggest they're all connected, but unless the war those people are fighting is against foul odors I just don't get why it had to be included.

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