D's Thoughts On... · 5:01pm Nov 23rd, 2014
...Big Hero 6 and Attack on Titan.
Hey guys! So, I decided to do something I never thought I'd ever do. A review column... Blog... Thing. Anyway, for this first entry into this new thing I'm doing, I thought I'd post my thoughts on something new, and something old. Lets start with the old, and take a look at the popular anime Attack on Titan.
Attack on Titan
The Story
Set in an alternate universe slash fantasy world, humanity has been brought to near extinction with the arrival of the Titans a hundred years prior to the events of the anime. With no need for sleep or sustenance of any kind, the Titans' sole purpose appears to be the consumption of mankind. They look human except for, you know, being the size of buildings, their lack of intelligence and the creepiest facial expressions I have seen since Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It has been stated numerous times throughout the anime that the Titans are humanity's natural predators. With that being said, the last of humanity can only find peace behind three impossibly tall walls that not even the Titans can scale, until another even bigger, Colossal Titan appears and busts a hole in the wall, which brings a massacre.
During said massacre, our main protagonist, Eren, witnesses his mother's consumption, his hometown decimated, and pretty much his whole life burned to ash. This motives him, his childhood friend Armin, and his foster sister Mikasa, to spend the next three years training to assist in humanity's counterattack against the Titans so that one day they may be free.
The entirety of the plot in Attack on Titan is made up of extremely long, masterfully pieced together plot lines, with perfectly timed rage-inducing cliffhangers at the end of each episode. Its like, as another reviewer put it, "an emotional rollercoaster that only goes up, but, you know, likes to stop dead every once in a while." Because, not only do the major plot lines take 8 + episodes to finish, but you can be sure that the last 30 sec. to a min. will contain some sort of hook, and you can be sure that that hook is a new plot element that completely changes everything. This can range from something as simple as a new way to battle the Titans, all the way to something as large as a character death. And speaking of character deaths, I hope you don't get too attached to fictional characters, because if you do, you're not gonna like this show.
The entire concept of plot armor is very nearly non-existent in this show. Everyone can die. Every - well, maybe not Mikasa, since shes paraded around as, again I quote, "a walking goddess of awesome and win." But, yeah, aside from her everyone is a red shirt and thus, disposable, making the death count of this anime astronomically high. With that being said, lets move on to the characters.
The Characters
Because of the previously mentioned death count of astronomical proportions, I will be sticking to the main characters so that I don't get your hopes up. Now lets save the best for last, and talk about Armin.
Armin
Armin Arlet, otherwise known as that guy who can think up brilliant strategies that keeps every - er, excuse me, almost everyone alive. He is also that guy who gets super emotional and breaks down easily, since Mikasa and Eren aren't allowed to break down.
Mikasa
Mikasa Ackerman, otherwise known as the stoic, and unkillable Titan-killing machine. To restate my quote of another reviewer, she is "paraded around as a walking goddess of awesome and win," with seemingly zero flaws in her character. However, this lack of flaws to her character, could be interpreted as a flaw, along with her singleminded dedication to her foster brother, Eren, willingly following him into the Survey Corp, despite Eren's encouragement to join the Military Police.
Eren
Finally we come to Eren Jaeger. At the start of the anime the picture we get of Eren is rather one-dimensional. His blind rage and need for revenge, while being a good starting point for his character, got rather tedious after the second episode. However, as early as about the seventh episode, we see a massive amount of development as Eren witnesses the carnage and death, that is a direct result of fighting the Titans. What that character development is though, I will not say, as that will spoil key points of the series. Suffice it to say, he becomes a teen that, while still driven somewhat by revenge, he finds other driving elements that makes him far more than the one-dimensional character we started with. The bonds he begins to form towards the end with his teammates in particular, before they get horribly murdered.
Animation Style
On to animation style! Please bear in mind that I got most of my information from Arkada's Glass Reflection review of Attack on Titan for this portion of the review. It may or may not surprise many of you that Attack on Titan was, and currently still is, spearheaded by a fairly new production studio, known as Studio Wit, which is technically a surrogate of Production IG, and it must be said that for an untested production studio, the quality of the animation is remarkable, with a very distinctive style. For example, the different characters are all outlined in various thicknesses of black to set them apart from the background and each other. Also, remind me to give whoever did the animation for the 3D Maneuvering Gear a great big cookie, cause that stuff is amazing, and the animation for it was flawless! And once again, what is up with the expression on some of these Titans? I mean, most of the times, they're creepy, as they should be, but other times? I mean we've got a cute, kawai Titan. Sure, why not?
Sound/Music
Moving on, to the sound! I only have one word to describe the soundtrack of this show: amazing. It has this habit of making scenes hopeful when it needs to, then suddenly changing to conflict and despair. It uses some of my favorite things in music; big orchestral moments, small vocal choirs, and, for music that go with fight/flight scenes, upbeat, heart pounding music. Now, as I understand it, not many people will like the English Rock elements, finding it distracting from the anime itself. Personally I don't have a problem with it, since it fits so well with the anime itself. Another thing to note is the small size of the soundtrack, constantly reusing tracks it used previously. Again, I have no problem with this, for the simple reasoning that a single, perfect track being used over and over again is far better than multiple mediocre pieces.
At the time of this blog, there has been a release of an English dub. Now, while some people will prefer to watch Attack on Titan in English, I'm going to have to turn you away from it. This is because, while the translation of the lines from Japanese to English is fine, and accurate, the emotion that you get in the original Japanese version is virtually nonexistent in the dub.
Finally, we come to the opening theme song. You know, I don't think I have to say anything about this, except the fact that I was extremely depressed when they changed it midway through the season.
Final Verdict
Attack on Titan is a well written, well choreographed and well animated series. However, to me, the ending is paramount. While at the release of this video, a second season has been announced, the fact that it ends on a cliffhanger still annoys me greatly.
So, with all that in mind, I have meticulously calculated values for the categories of story, characters, animation, sound, and my own personal enjoyment, which after having it devoured by a Titan and lost to the black void where all Red Shirts will one day rest, which is a fairly complex process, believe me, leaves me awarding Attack on Titan with a final score of 9.14 out 10, with a recommendation to buy it rather than stream it.
Now, with Attack on Titan out of the way, lets move on and take a look at Big Hero 6!
Big Hero 6
The Story
Set in the futuristic city of San Fransokyo. Hiro is a 14-year-old robotics genius who spends most of his time participating in back alley robot fights. His older brother, Tadashi, worried that Hiro is wasting his potential, takes Hiro to the robotics lab at his university, where Hiro meets Tadashi's friends, GoGo Tomago, Wasabi, Honey Lemon and Fred, as well as Baymax, a personal healthcare companion Tadashi created. Amazed, Hiro decides to apply to the school. He presents his project—microbots, swarms of tiny robots that are able to link together in any arrangement imaginable—at an annual exhibition to gain admission. Professor Callaghan, the head of the program, is impressed, and Hiro gets in. When a fire breaks out at the university, Tadashi rushes in to rescue Callaghan, but the building explodes and both are killed. As a result of losing his brother, Hiro secludes himself from others.
A few days afterward, through a series of accidental activations and near misses on the streets, Hiro learns that his brother was killed in a successful attempt to steel his microbots. Now he, Baymax, GoGo, Wasabi, Honey Lemon and Fred, must suit up and go take on the man controlling the stollen microbots, uncover a sinister plot, and save the day!
Characters
Now, unlike Attack on Titan, there are not too many character deaths, except for Tadashi, or course. However, I am only going to be looking at the six main characters of the movie, GoGo, Wasabi, Honey Lemon, Fred, Hiro and Baymax.
Hiro
Hiro Hamada, a 14-year-old robotics prodigy who has already graduated high school. His older brother Tadashi inspires Hiro to gain admission to San Fransokyo's Institute of Technology. Hiro, as I said earlier, is a genius when it comes to robotics. He was even able to build everyone's super hero suits! However, this character is not without his flaws. The big one that comes to find is his need for revenge. This little *cough*huge*cough* flaw nearly loses him his friends mid-way through the movie. Thankfully, they resolve this nearly as quickly as it comes up, with only two scenes devoted to it.
Baymax
An inflatable robot built by Tadashi to serve as a healthcare companion, Baymax views the world from one perspective—he just wants to help people, thus seeing Hiro as his patient, and everyone else around him as potential patients. Other than that there really isn't anything I can say about Baymax without revealing spoilers.
GoGo
A tough, athletic, adrenaline junkie who is developing electromagnetic wheel axles at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, GoGo is definitely a girl of few words. In other words, a quieter and less egotistical version of Rainbow Dash, with a far superior amount of scientific knowledge. Her super suit incorporates her electromagnetic wheel axels, allowing her to speed circles around her opponents, and throw smaller wheels as frisbee-like weapons.
Wasabi
A smart, slightly neurotic, largely built neat-freak and an expert on laser cutting at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, Wasabi is actually the most cautious and most normal among the group of brazen characters. So he really grounds the movie in the second act and becomes, in a way, the voice of reason and points out that what they're doing is crazy. His super suit incorporates his lasers in the form of large laser swords capable of cutting most materials.
Honey Lemon
A quirky chemistry whiz at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, Honey Lemon is a glass-is-half-full kind of person. But with a mad-scientist quality and a twinkle in her eye, there's more to Honey than it seems. Her super suit allows her to create spheres filled with rather nasty chemical combinations that can create shields, trap opponents, create a thin sheet of slick ice, just to name a few.
Fred
A laid-back comic-book fan who also plays the mascot at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, Fred also gave GoGo, Wasabi, and Honey Lemon their nicknames. He is probably the most out there in the character department, seemingly being nothing more than comic relief at the start, but revealing himself to be a formidable opponent in the final scenes of the movie, and a post-credits scene that explains so much about a certain aspect of his character. His super suit clearly reflects his love for comic books, particularly the ones about lizard-like heroes. It can breathe fire, and jump to extreme heights.
Animation Style
Theres really not that much to say about the animation for Big Hero 6, other than the fact that, while this is a Disney movie that looks like a Pixar movie, its not. This is a solid Disney work.
Sound/Music
Alright, if you couldn't tell in the Attack on Titan review, for me, music is a big deal. For a lot of movies/shows/video games, I'll watch/play them just so I can listen to the music again, even if the story is a piece of crap.
For Big Hero 6, the music in my opinion was good, but it wasn't great. The only song that really grabbed my attention was the song Immortals by Fall Out Boy. Aside from that, it wasn't really anything special, just background music as the movie progressed.
Final Verdict
Now, as I said in the Attack on Titan review, for me, the ending is paramount. For Big Hero 6, the ending was great! However, with the post-credit scene at the end, we are left with a cliffhanger. I absolutely despise cliffhangers. But, for the sanity of my readers, I will ignore my urge to rant about it.
So, with all that in mind, I have meticulously calculated values for the categories of story, characters, animation, sound, and my own personal enjoyment, which after having built a super suit for it, and battled with microbots, leaves me awarding Big Hero 6 with a score of 7.9 out of 10, and a recommendation to see it in the theatre, and then but it on blu-ray.
And with that, I bid you all farewell, until next time!
Onwards and Upwards,
-D
Oh cool. Being the big fan of Marvel films that I am It's good to hear Disney is doing right on Big Hero Six. As for Attack on Titans, I've heard many good things and yes...Cliffhangers annoy me to. :twilight smile: I much prefer seasons to end on a definitive note...maybe a post credit end scene but end it to at least give the viewer a sense of closure...Good reviews man.
2620004
Nice to see someone appreciating my reviews
2620123 I like the format, and I think you're really good.
Oh also, have you seen the Anime The Devil is a Part Timer, I just started watching it, it's pretty interesting. Maybe you could make it your next review blog.
2620175
Nope, never heard of that anime before. My next review though will be on an anime with certain contract making, white, cat-like creature in it.
2620212 Interesting. Can't wait to read.