Board 8 > Jeff & Leon: Games and Anime in the Same House Beyond Darkness [JZLF]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Jeff Zero posted...

I feel this way about certain games most people deem "timeless", like Super Mario Bros

But it's a platformer! I can imagine graphics being more important in "immersive" games, but SMB1?
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Yeah, and that's what people tend to say to me, too. It just looks ugly to me. Thankfully, SMB3 and especially World hold up far better!
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barreldragon88 posted...

I've always wanted to replay FFVII, but didn't think i would be able to get past the super duper outdated graphics

They've never been the best looking graphics to begin with, even when they came out. The 32/64 era was always kinda ugly, but the HD version makes the best of it. The graphics never really bothered me anyway.
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imagine not being able to play Mario 1 because of graphics
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It's not a huge loss, really. I don't care for the game very much in general!
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What i meant by the teasers were the ones that play after credits roll in the movies. They're like 15-second preview segments, and it might be fun to catch them and watch the teased movie shortly after.
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That's happened a couple of times, but post-credits scenes have varied wildly. The only ones that have really been like that at all were Coulson seeing Thor's hammer and Steve with his punching bag. The rest were Nick Fury and Thanos/shawarma etc
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Jeff Zero posted...

I enjoy reading your AoT posts, Maria. Please keep it up! What's interesting is that you and I seem to view the show through far different lenses, so it's nice to see what someone would say were they paying more attention to the military tactics and the relatively sprawling cast. You've got a better eye for it than I do in this show's case.

yeah I'm into logistics so that makes sense that I'd pay attention to that type of stuff. unfortunately I did not do a write up for the next episode so I don't think I'll say much about it. I don't want to risk posting anything that might be spoilers. that's the main reason I've just been cutting and pasting my old write ups. especially now that I've read up to chapter 90 of the manga I'm afraid I might say too much without realizing it.

that being said I never got around to writing a full season review so I might get one of those ready to post in this topic when you guys finish the series. heh.
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How many chapters of the manga have been adapted into the anime thus far?
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55 I think

I've basically read the next two arcs worth of material, and that would be enough to make another 36 episodes.
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MariaTaylor posted...

watching more titan already? I wonder how close the dub is to finishing.

Well, it certainly has the next episode done because it's already aired on Toonami. Once they watch that, they'll be current with that. (Until tomorrow night when there's another one)
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All right, another round of anime complete!

This episode of Attack on Titan is a lot more subdued, as it's mostly just Mikasa, Armin, and the blond dude with the thin mustache reminiscing about "the good old days." The end of the episode is setting up for a big showdown next episode, and it looks like we'll have to wait until Sunday for that one because we're all caught up to the dub now!

In Kanon, Mai and Sayuri are excellent, and the school ball is great. We also finally learn Shiori's last name, even though they've been listing it in the credits since her first appearance, for some reason.

In Eureka Seven, Talho gets a full makeover to the point that she's barely recognizable anymore. They're really playing the long game with this Dewey Sephiroth clone, aren't they? We also see an old movie of Eureka and the Nirvash when they were first "discovered," although the circumstances behind all of this is still very murky. It wouldn't be Eureka Seven otherwise though!

We get a new OP and ED in Psycho-Pass, and they're both pretty good! We also get a flashback episode featuring Yayoi, but the star of the show is this complete deadpan snarker Enforcer who has no sense of subtlety whatsoever. I'm assuming the reason we don't see him in the present is because he's already dead, which makes me sad.
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Also, I made it up to Aerith's house in FFVII! I was saddened to learn this version doesn't have "This guy are sick" and other charming mistranslations and typos in it. Oh well, still having fun with it as Jeff Zero and I voice all the characters along the way like we did with Xenogears (although he did most of the work with that one).
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my voice was legit hoarse for weeks after that one
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that's why I'm trying to pull my weight a little bit more this time around

we'll be doing all the voices for Symphonia too when we restart that one

which I figure we can do once Jeff Zero is done with his Shadow Hearts experience
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that sounds like torture

and not just for Jeff Zero
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I happen to have done professional voice acting for MMO how-to guides TYVM ! ! !
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transcience posted...

that sounds like torture

and not just for Jeff Zero

his Rico voice was the highlight let me tell you

I still do my own version of it from time to time just for the heck of it
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Rico

ugh man

that's what broke my larynx
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yeah my Barret voice is already pretty rough on me

gotta get some of the gravel out of it
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I specifically recall a night I couldn't make Elly sound remotely human because Rico's rough mutant voice just infected everyone else in the cast
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was that the night we had Bart & Rico's Excellent Adventure
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more like BROco
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Man, these upcoming 2017/18/19 Eureka Seven movies sound cool.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/advertorial/2017-04-09/eureka-seven-hi-evolution/.114398

Obligatory cute Japanese creator quote:

Chief Director: Tomoki Kyoda
“This could be a sort of reunion. Please make yourself comfortable when you come to see this. We created this to be easygoing.”

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The Avengers = Thor > Iron Man > TFA > TIH > Iron Man 2

I'm able to get past the flaws in Thor more than most since he and Loki have been my favorite comic book hero and villain for years and the movie did a pretty great job with both and their chemistry.

Also has some influence from JMS' run on Thor which is one of my favorites.
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rico and barret are probably the same voice eh
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Is there any sci-fi that takes place in the future that actually does a good job of taking the Internet's existence into account, Jeff? I've seen some present day and near future stuff that does a good job of it, but most stuff that takes place more than a hundred years from now seems to forget that it's a thing.
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I think a lot of sci-fi either takes into account its present prominence or -- in the case of 90s-and-back fare, aptly predicted the rise of something similar. But it's all masked or somewhat off, because the writers have cranked it to 11 and spelled doom for society with it (see: AI evolution in Psycho-Pass for one of many examples) or otherwise obfuscated its blatant origins. (The internet is so passe! Now we can just plug a USB cord into our earlobes and become one with the ether.)

Ironically, some of the more on-point depictions of a future with an identifiable internet predate the meteoric rise of the internet. The system computers in Star Trek and Babylon 5 are often used in "AOL keyword search" style scenes, but they're also tasked with a wide array of entertainment. ("Computer, play Earth classical music. Something festive. 18th century. European." Siri and Cortana shall survive the centuries.) You see this in weird forum parodies in Ghost in the Shell and -- again, since it's fresh on my mind right now -- Psycho-Pass, too.

The reason I think the 80s and 90s were so on-the-nose compared to the often less-identifiable internet content in modern media is that sci-fi writers love to take bold predictive creative steps. It's a challenge of the genre to tackle relevant social commentary whilst guessing what the future might look like. Thing is, science fiction has got a stellar track record for this stuff. Look at the PADDs the crew carries around in TNG/DS9/VOY. They're tablets! Look at the flip communicators in TOS. They're flip phones! (Already out of style, though. Whoops. Maybe they make a comeback.) So when the stuff that was right before the internet explosion was being written, writers were looking at the increasing likelihood of said explosion, and wrote stories correctly predicting what the net might look like. To the audience, it was wild, but when we watch those episodes now, read those books now, it feels strangely vintage.
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Hmm, you're right about them being good at portraying access to information, but I kinda feel like they're not as skilled at portraying the communication aspect. Star Trek doesn't have anything like social media. Hell, it barely even acknowledges that news is a thing.
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I think that's because Star Trek tries really hard to convince its audience that FAKE NEWS media (I'm not even kidding with this stretch) has gone by the wayside. It's kind of unfortunate though because having a perspective journalist would be fun. Jake Sisko becomes one on DS9, and his dialogue in that character arc seems to suggest that certain conventional cliches still exist. ("The people have a right to know, Commander!")

As for social media and Star Trek, I gotta imagine the holodeck industry just kind of consumed it, lol. ("Let's all chill in this swanky 1920s bar on Thursday evenings before hitting up that raid." "The Alamo is a Level 90 raid! We aren't ready!" Oh gosh, now I'm making up dialogue instead of citing quotes. Admit it, though, you can totally see Bashir and O'Brien saying this to each other.)

Social media presence seems like something that space opera hasn't really gone near, which is weird but also maybe indicative of the fact that most space opera IPs are a little old or ancient. Oh! I know! The Expanse. That's a young space opera IP. A good one, too, Mac. I recommend it. Anyway, in the first season one of the leads is like a cyberpunk film noir detective dude, and he's tracking a missing persons chick. He combs through some hilarious dating app schlock. It's very familiar-feeling internet.

Cyberpunk brings to mind another good point, though. I think it's the realm of cyberpunk to go after social media rep in sci-fi. I keep mentioning GitS and Psycho-Pass, because they both include stuff like that at the forefront. It's just that VR always seems to have boomed at least a solid decade before when the shows are set, because it's all visual.

Otherland, a book series by Tad Williams, also covers this with an MMO-like virtual multiverse that's really got its hooks in society.
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transience posted...

rico and barret are probably the same voice eh

Nah, Rico's voice is a lot deeper.

I'm mostly trying to imitate Beau Billingslea's voice that he uses for Barret in AC.
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Attack on Titan was a bit slower this time, which is not a bad thing at all. I'm interested in the dynamics between the main cast. I like Mikasa and Armin a fair bit (the former's always been solid and the latter has really improved with age) and we got one of the best scenes in the show's run with the two of them together at the top of the wall reminiscing and encouraging one-another. Hannes ended up stealing the scene though with a downright inspirational rallying cry. It's neat that he remembered the Eren flashback sequence Mikasa experienced from his own perspective. This guy saved Eren's life in the first episode, y'know. It was good to see Jean again too. I wish this show had more breathing room, honestly, because it gives us cool stuff like this when it does!

Kanon gave us a Mai overload, which is good because she's one of my favorites. She's got that Star Trek Voyager's early-seasons Seven of Nine vibe to her, except, you know, minus the whole "I kind of want to return to the Borg Collective and maybe kill you all" streak. The ballroom sequences might be my favorite portion of the show to-date, although Makoto's "death" might still top it. The dance was cool and the ensuing demon attack was riveting. I do wish these types of shows didn't give us lead protagonists who had the whole harem thing going on, because it feels a little schlocky to me when all these young women pine over them as part of their arcs and I think Mai's definitely got a thing for Yuichi now. I'd prefer a larger male cast for more even distribution, but then the tradeoff there is that we'd lose the constant relevant perspective status of our leads like Yuichi and Tomoya, and that's vital to the experience. So I guess it's fine the way it is. Just nitpicking! Considering I never thought I'd much care for this kind of series in the first place, it's still a net win that I enjoy them as much as I do. (Especially Clannad. Always Clannad.)

Eureka Seven provided plenty of Corralian backstory in that most unique of Eureka Seven ways -- by managing to be highly enjoyable but also hard to parse. It's a fine line this show travels, and it works. Every time, it works. It's just a fun laid-back show that also manages to be very sentimental and emotionally turbulent at some point in every single episode. I am beginning to see why the 12-year-old show has inspired such a following and remained a pertinent part of anime subculture. It's a shame AO is so ill-regarded, because I'm gonna miss these characters. Talho was awesome here -- Leon asked midway through the episode if she was going to get a wardrobe change and I sternly denied the possibility because this is anime and she's fanservice central and that sells. And then she blew us both away; she's dressed super-conservatively now (and looks great for it, too, I might add!) and her hair is totally different and speaking of sci-fi rhetoric she may have even altered her skin tone somehow. She looks radically different and it conveys her life choices brilliantly.

Psycho-Pass zeroed in on Yayoi, previously a total side character whose subtle mannerisms and quiet tones had suggested to me that she was simply a pretty face fulfilling an anime archetype. We got the story behind her joining the agency, and it's a pretty good one. It can't match the pure adrenaline and dramatic resonance of the two Makishima-chasing trilogies which preceded it, but it doesn't have to. The show has earned several breather chapters after that madness. It got me thinking, though, and this is an unpopular opinion among anime fans, but I really wish some of my favorites in the medium followed more of a Star Trek episode count and were allowed to last for 100+ episodes. It's because these worlds are so captivating and rife for storytelling and these characters could have tons of development. I'll settle for 22 though!
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LeonhartFour posted...

we'll be doing all the voices for Symphonia too when we restart that one

i demand a who's voicing who list
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It's not a challenge unless I'm voicing the lead female, the deep-voiced rogue, and the mutant freak
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Jeff Zero posted...

and this is an unpopular opinion among anime fans, but I really wish some of my favorites in the medium followed more of a Star Trek episode count and were allowed to last for 100+ episodes.

there's always One Piece

(which you would absolutely be watching alone because no thanks)
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One Piece more like Small Two of Ten Thousand Thousand Pieces
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xp1337 posted...

LeonhartFour posted...

we'll be doing all the voices for Symphonia too when we restart that one

i demand a who's voicing who list

Well, Jeff Zero gets Lloyd since he's playing it, and I call dibs on Presea because she's the best.

Everything else is up for grabs, I guess. We weren't really sticking to hard fast roles on these things.
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Except Xenogears, AKA "Leon is Fei because he's playing it" and I am "literally everyone else on the planet"

There are scenes where Fei decides not to participate in the conversation and I'm chugging hot tea like it's water in the desert
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I've had opportunities to watch One Piece but it never seemed like something I'd be into... and that's before factoring in that it has 3486 episodes.

I think the longest show I've watched is Bleach... and that eventually became out of sheer determination to finish what I started. (Also it can be mindless fun sometimes.) That or Inuyasha, for similar reasons. Too lazy to check which is longer. Think it's Bleach... though I don't think I saw quite every Bleach episode.

Hunter x Hunter seems legit though.
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I think the longest anime I've watched start-to-finish is... Yu Yu Hakusho? It's really not that much of an accomplishment. That show has like 110 episodes. Cut that in half if pretending it's an hour-long ep and you've got 55, which is just over two seasons worth of hour-long Western fare back when we ran stuff at 26 episodes a year. Star Trek TNG/DS9/VOY all have seven seasons apiece and take place not only in the same universe but during the same era as well. So that's 21 seasons of ~26 episodes a pop, all an hour long.

Basically tldr; anime is easy mode to me. But I've never gotten into a shounen that's longer than YYH, because for whatever reason the really, really big fare -- Bleach, Naruto, One Piece -- has never driven me toward it. There's the (Western) king, Dragon Ball, of course. I watched Kai with Cooper Midnight but that was a "scant" 98 episodes. I think they've finally localized the Buu arc? That'd crank it to like 140 or something if memory serves but I still haven't seen that.

Inuyasha... I got two seasons into it back when I was a kid but I dropped it after that. I was still enjoying it but that was during one of life's more tumultuous phases and I lost the will to keep at it. I want to run through all 350+ eps + The Final Chapter someday. Is The Final Chapter watchable, xp? Or even good?

Gundam shows never really run longer than 48-52 tops. If you want to stretch things and say that Universal Century is an all-encompassing "single" series universe, I reckon I've watched the majority of the... 225 or so episodes. But the original is like 43, Zeta's 50, ZZ is like 50, each of the spinoffs is between 6 and 13, the newer film series OVAs are all 1-3 80-minute pieces or whatever. Unicorn's 24. Yeah, I dunno.

I analyze the heck outta this stuff for literally no reason.
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Jeff Zero posted...

Except Xenogears, AKA "Leon is Fei because he's playing it" and I am "literally everyone else on the planet"

that's why I changed my strategy for FFVII and ToS

plus you really seemed to enjoy employing all these different voices since it seems like you've done this before
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Jeff Zero posted...

Is The Final Chapter watchable, xp? Or even good?

It's been a while, but I think I liked it. But I have a soft spot for Inuyasha because it was one of the first anime I watched back when I was younger.
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Jeff Zero posted...

Basically tldr; anime is easy mode to me.

it's the only way to be if you're watching a show after it's finished

I'll follow a long show if I'm following it from the start

Not interested in watching a long show if it's already over because it feels like way too much
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LeonhartFour posted...

plus you really seemed to enjoy employing all these different voices since it seems like you've done this before

Mos Def.

xp1337 posted...

It's been a while, but I think I liked it. But I have a soft spot for Inuyasha because it was one of the first anime I watched back when I was younger.

I have a soft spot for it, too. When I was 13, I used to sneak out through my window and hike two miles to my friend's house Monday through Friday nights (yep) to watch new episodes on Midnight Run. That went on for the entire first two seasons, I think. Had a huge crush on Kagome, too, and thought Inuyasha's snark was Peter Parker of Feudal Japan. Loved it.

I went back and rewatched the first... five or six episodes? About two years ago. It isn't as strong as I remembered, but it's still fun.
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also completely off-topic but

Psycho-Pass OPs/EDs

ED1 > OP2 > ED2 > OP1
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also you shouldn't be chugging hot drinks if you're trying to help your voice

room temperature drinks are the best thing for your voice
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listen to Mr. Serious-about-his-James-Arnold-Taylor-videos

he's right though
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JAT's channel is fantastic if you're a fan of the intricacies of voice acting.
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indeed it is! I enjoy listening to it on the side when you watch eps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj2xvXNFJ6g

hnnng listening to this while rewriting review posts for a blog site really makes the experience more epic
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The longest running series I've watched in Pokemon which has a little over 900 episodes right now. I think the second longest in Bleach since I never got into Naruto or One Piece.
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