ANIMATION – 3 Reasons “Attack on Titan” Anime Blew Me Away
It’s no secret that I like anime. I grew up watching it. I think it’s one of the few sources for unique animated cartoons in the world.
The Japanese are not afraid to take risks when it comes to stories and genres in animation. Most of the time because the anime is based off of already successful Manga with huge fan bases.
When I start watching a new anime show or movie I’ve never seen or heard of, I watch it hoping for the best but expecting something mediocre of bad. I’ve watched enough anime to know that there’s some pretty bad stuff out there.
Recently on Netflix, a new anime by the name of Attack on Titan came to my attention. It was recently released yet it had four stars. This was quite surprising.
The title made it seem like it would be a science fiction story. Maybe, it would take place in outer space.
I had to take care of holding Baby Gio at the time. I didn’t really have much to do since I had to hold and rock him to sleep, so I put the cartoon on to pass the time. Imagine my surprise when I was instantly gripped by this cartoon.
I’ve rarely been so enthralled so quickly. Here’s the three reasons why this cartoon blue my mind:
1. It’s a Fantastic Premise
This is NOT a cartoon about outer space like I thought it was. If anything, the title almost makes no sense. It should have been called, “Attack on the Titans,” or “Attack of the Titans.”
It’s a fantasy story about the last of humanity and the giants who have all but wiped them out.
This isn’t your happy fairyland and magic type of fantasy, this is dark, dreadful, “we’re all going to die” kind of fantasy.
After a century of safety and peace behind these giant walls that protect humanity from the giants that have wiped out almost all humans, the giants manage to breach the first wall, thus starting humanity’s last stand.
It’s as intense as it sounds.
And the world building is really well done.
2. It’s Got Some Fantastic Cinematography
One of the things that is just mindbogglingly good is the use of the camera in this cartoon. It’s a hand drawn cartoon but uses CG backgrounds to move through the streets, following the soldiers as they do their thing.
Believe me when I say that what the soldiers do in this cartoon is very dynamic.
The cinematography adds a visceral flair that really builds the intensity of show. I can imagine how much duller this show would be with static cameras.
3. It’s Gripping
From the very first minute of this show, you’re hooked. THIS is how to tell a story. It’s truly gripping.
It’s one scary show. Very intense. Very creepy. Very suspenseful.
If you’ve watched the Battlestar Gallactica reboot from a few years back, you have a bit of an idea of the intensity of the situation the characters in this story are dealing with. It’s a very similar premise.
And the giants in this show are really horrific. The show goes out of it’s way to make you realize how awful these things are. The are REALLY SCARY. And humanity really doesn’t stand much of a chance against them.
You empathize with the protagonists right away, simply because their situation is so dire.
This is one of the reason the show is so gripping. On top of that, the story is so full of twists and turns, shows often end in these crazy cliff hangers. And just when you think things are finally going to be okay, they throw in another twist.
It’s brilliant.
Watch It
If you have Netflix streaming and you want a great, intense show and don’t mind reading subtitles, this is the a show you should watch.
I’ve watched a lot of anime, and they rarely grip you like this. This show is obviously based on a manga series. Now that I’ve watched the anime, I’m curious how much more story there is in the manga.
Have you seen this show? If you have, what do you think? Do you agree?
ANIMATION – 10 American Animated Movies With Great Premises That Didn’t Deliver
It’s not the idea, it’s the execution. You can have the greatest idea for an animated movie ever, but if you don’t put together the right story and tell it in the most compelling way, it can fall flat on it’s face.
Too often I’ve been excited about the prospect of an animated movie only to have it fall short of my expectations.
I don’t mean to be mean.
The people that worked on these movies worked their butts off. They did their best to make the best movie they could. I actually KNOW people who worked on some of these movies personally. I have nothing against the effort and art they put into making these movies. In fact, the stuff I saw them do was actually really great. But for whatever reason, the movies just didn’t work out as well as they should have.
Out of all the movie on this list, this movie came the closest to actually being good. The character designs where amazing. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles where great. The action was superb.
It really felt right.
But the story was lacking. It was only okay. There was nothing about it that really made this movie outstanding.
It’s really too bad, it’s not a horrible movie. I own it, and I enjoy watching it for the action and the look of it. It just didn’t turn out to be as good as it should have.
Out of all the movie on this list, this movie has the least exciting premise. When you hear the premise it doesn’t really get you all that exciting. That said, the pedigree behind the movie was incredible.
This was the movie that was made right around the time Dreamworks was first formed. At the height of their headhunting the greatest artists and animators in the world.
Dreamworks potentially could have done no wrong here.
Visually, this movie was exactly what was promised. It’s a masterpiece of animation. The art direction and character designs are amazing. The draftsmanship top notch.
But the story…well, it fell short. It’s really too bad. This is a beautiful movie.
Man, this movie got a lot of people excited. It had the potential to “fixing” the bad after taste of the Star Wars prequels.
Problem was, it was never meant to a movie. It was just the pilot for the TV show released theatrically.
The show was animated overseas, the assets the show had to work with where limited. The budget was that of a TV show, and the story wasn’t as ambitious or epic as the show later became.
It was a “meh” story. It shouldn’t have been released theatrically. It disappointed. It was a bad start to what eventually became one of the best animated shows on television.
Oh man, I love Astroboy. I was excited for this movie. How could you go wrong?
Simply adapt one of Osama Tezuka’s many great Astro Boy stories into a CG animated movie and watch the money come in. Simple. The character has lasted this long for a reason.
So what happens? They ignore the source material and end up with some weird Americanized version of the character that lacks any of the “Kokoro” of the actual Japanese version.
Missed opportunity. The movie looked good but it was really disappointing.
I’ve never read the The Chronicles of Prydain books. I’ve heard from a friend of mine who read them as a kid that they were quite good.
This movie had the potential to be The Lord of the Rings of Disney animated movies.
Unfortunately it wasn’t. I don’t know what happened during it’s production but the movie just didn’t grab anyone’s attention and the story didn’t quite get executed well.
Fans of the book series where disappointment and the movie has gained cult status as THE worst of the Disney animated movies.
Wow, Beowulf. This was an ambitious premise to tackle. The epic of all epics.
Perfect for animation…but it wasn’t animated, it was motion captured. And the characters where made to look as life like as possible, which put the movie in that odd “uncanny value” territory.
Then the adaptation of the story which was written by non other than Neil Gaiman wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be.
The best thing in the movie was the dragon. I’m pretty sure, that part wasn’t motion captured.
Great premise, good attempt at a mature animated movie. I appreciated that part, but the overall movie was disappointing.
FINALLY Disney was going to start making the type of movies I wanted to watch. This movie had it all, Pirates, treasure, adventure, a proven story and it was going to be science fiction.
How can you go wrong?
I don’t know what it is about this but it just wasn’t as good it could have been. I had VERY high hopes for this.
The art direction, the animation, the character designs, where all there. I even liked the song. It SHOULD have worked…but it didn’t.
This movie sealed the coffin on Disney movies moving further in this direction with their animated movies.
This is the movie Disney wanted Miyazaki to direct. More than Treasure Planet, this one really seemed like it was going to change Disney animation.
This was the closest Disney got to an animated Indiana Jones movie.
I was excited. Mike Mignola was brought in to help with the art direction. This was going to be like a high octane comic book movie.
Even some of the characters look like comic characters.
Unfortunately, it didn’t quite deliver. The story wasn’t compelling enough.
The animation was great, the art direction was exceptional, but the characters designs were all over the place. None of the characters looked like they belonged in the same universe.
Out of all the Dreamworks movies, this is the one that most disappointed me. Once again you have some of the best artists, animators and designers in the world working on a movie but THIS time the premise is AWESOME.
The adventures of Sinbad. This promised to have some superheroics and monster fighting. This sounded awesome! Just going to watch a movie of the concept art alone would have been mind blowing.
So I went to the theater excited. Finally the kind of animated movie I wanted to see coming from a major studio and it would be really well animated. Only to come out of the movie theater so darn disappointed.
The movie was as beautiful as it promised to be. The art was great, the animation great, the designs…where a little watered down and a touch generic. And I say this because I’ve seen the concept art of the characters which were more interesting than the final version. The action WAS there but it was empty. I didn’t care. The story was lacking. I could see what they were going for but it missed the mark.
That movie marked the end of hand drawn animation at Dreamworks.
Don Bluth’s animated movies are really inconsistent at best. Some of his movies are AWESOME and some are just down right awful. I don’t know why. I don’t know the circumstances behind the inconsistencies.
All I know is that when I saw the trailer for Titan AE I was totally in. It was the first, full blown attempt at an American hand drawn science fiction feature film by a big studio in years.
I couldn’t have been more excited.
The movie started off very promising, only to slowly become more and more meandering as it went. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t good either. The characters where generic and the animation was rotoscoped, which puts the motion in that “uncanny valley” place. Which I hate.
I own this movie. Once in a while I take it out and watch it. Just the attempt at such an epic science fiction idea goes a long way in my book.
The idea was so great only to be so disappointing. It’s really too bad.
ANIMATION – 6 Reasons Why Watching Justice League Animated is a Great Way to Learn About the DC Universe.
If you’ve been watching Arrow, enjoyed the The Dark Knight Trilogy or theMan of Steel movie and want to learn more about the DC universe where do you go? What’s the least painful way to do so without having to read a ton of comics?
Well, actually, since the New 52 reboot of the DC Universe, the comics are actually a great place to start. BUT if you want an alternate way, then watching Justice League animated along with all the other shows of it’s kinds is a great way to go.
You can watch the video below or read the article yourself. This video is different. You’ll actually see me reading this article. Usually I just get my video transcribed:
(Many of the links in this post are affiliate links. thank you for your support.)
Now, I know that the title of this post is how watchingJUSTICE LEAGUE animated is a great way to learn about the DC universe, BUT the truth is, Justice League is only one of FOUR DC animated shows the revolve around the same animated Universe.
I recommend you start with Batman The Animated series Season 4, then watch Superman The Animated Series followed by Batman Beyond so when you watch Justice League/Justice League Unlimited, you can get the most out of the show.
BUT since that may be WAY too much to ask, then starting with the Justice League animated series by itself is just about as good a place to start as any.
Just recognize that the six reasons below can just as easily be applied to the other animated shows I mentioned as they can to the Justice League show. Alright then, let’s begin:
1. It Introduces You to the Core Members
The first episode of Justice League introduces you to the core members of the League, witch include: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Hawkgirl. Everyone of the these characters that didn’t have their own animated series gets quite a few “spot light” episodes where you get to know background about them.
Mostly though, you get to know them by the way they act in high pressure and dangerous situations.
When it comes to Superman and Batman, their animated series goes into further depth on those characters than the Justice League show does. The Superman animated series is especially good in this regard.
2. It Introduces You to All the Toughest DC Villains
Right off the bat the Justice League series needed to bring out the big guns. This is the Justice League cartoon after all. They’re the best and most power heroes in the DC universe. For the story to be interesting you need to bring out the meanest bad guys the DC universe has to offer: The Manhunters, Felix Faust, Mongul, Morgaine le Fey, Vandal Savage, Dark Seid, Braniac, Despero are just some of the many villains that make their appearance in this show.
3. It Stories Takes you Through Time and Space of the DC Universe
This show goes EVERYWHERE. From Dark Seid’s planet Apokolips, to the Wild West, from the Batman Beyond future, to the Green Lantern Planet OA, from the far future Earth where the sun is Red, to Skartaris (a hidden world inside the Earth’s core). This show takes you to some amazing DC locations.
It’s pretty impressive how vast the DC universe is.
4. You’re Introduced to Practically Every Superhero and Villain in the DC Universe.
One you hit season 3 of the Justice League show called, Justice League Unlimited, the flood gates open and every superhero in the DC universe is invited to become a member of the Justice League.
For you fans of Arrow, this is where Green Arrow makes his appearance, along with Black Canary, and Roy Harper. But you also get characters like Supergirl, The Question, Booster Gold, Hawk and Dove, even Batman Beyond makes an appearance, I mean, just about every single superhero ever created in the DC Universe make, at least, a cameo.
And you can’t have that many superheroes without almost all the villains in the DC Universe showing up too. Lex, Solomon Grundy, Captain Cold, The Trickster, The Leech,The Crime Syndicate. There’s whole episodes with the Legion of Doom, swamp Headquarters and all.
It’s pretty fantastic.
Although, I will say, that if you want to get the full story of Dark Seid, the New Gods and their history with Superman, the place to go is the second season of Superman The Animated Series. You will also find the full origin of Braniac there as well.
5. The Stories From the Show Where so Good That They Influenced the Comics.
Alan Moore’s story “For the Man Who Has Everything,” is adapted into an animated episode. It’s a great one, but mostly the episodes of the show were original. They were so good in fact that, as I read comics, I saw the same stories from the animated cartoon start popping up in the comics.
There’s a whole series where the Earth Governments go to war with The Justice League because they’re afraid of how powerful they are. It’s really dramatic stuff.
There are just too many great stories to count in this show. I’m going to have to make a top ten list.
6. It Acclimates You To the Type of Action You Get in the Comics
This is something I think is important. Especially after the backlash that the movie Man of Steel got from the crazy over the top Zod vs. Superman fight at the end of the movie.
Movie audience that never pick up a comic where shocked at the destruction, but if you read the comics, that kind of damage is very common.
Watching these cartoons will help. Once you’re used to seeing that superhero action is always over the top and very destructive, when you watch the live action heroes do it, it will feel a bit more true to form.
So There You Have It
Alright, so those are the reason why you should watch Justice League/Justice League Unlimited. I still recommend you start with season four of Batman The Animated series and move on to the other shows before getting to Justice League, BUT if you only start with Justice League, you’ll be alright.
I’ve made a few videos about anime. I’ve done my top ten Miyazaki movies, I’ve done my top ten anime TV series, and I don’t want to do a top ten anime movies because pretty much Miyazaki is it.
So I’ve already done my top ten Miyazaki movies, which basically is the best anime movies out there. But I did want to recognize, there’s other TV series and other made-for-video movies in anime that are worth watching.
This is the best of the rest, I guess I should say.
You can either watch the video or read the transcription below. Below, you’ll also find links to these shows and videos so you can get a taste of what they’re like:
I’ve watched a lot of anime over the years. Some of it just doesn’t quite fit my categories of these top ten lists, so I’m just going to point them out to you as far as the stuff that I really, really like, and I recommend.
You may disagree with me violently, especially with the first one, number ten, but hear me out.
My number ten. Okay, you ready for this?
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Yes, Yu-Gi-Oh!, you read right. That show that everybody hates, that everybody, every single time somebody says, oh yeah, Yu-Gi-Oh!. And you see someone playing that, it’s just like,
“Oh that’s an awful anime. That’s an awful cartoon. How awful!”
I love Yu-Gi-Oh!, and one of the reasons why I love Yu-Gi-Oh! is, I play the card game. Yes, I go and I look at the cards and I play them and it’s a fun, fun game.
I actually like it more than playing Magic: The Gathering, and, yes I also play that game by the way. And hey, I also play the PokémonCard Game with my daughter.
So, yeah, I like the trading card games and I do like Yu-Gi-Oh!. I think Yu-Gi-Oh! is one of the very best trading card games. And because I like the game, when I watch the show, it literally feels like playing the game.
You know, if you watch the show, you’re seeing this over the top—okay, first of all, let me remark, one really quick thing about Yu-Gi-Oh!, and that is the character designs are terrible. They’re just ugly, ugly, ugly. I personally don’t like the character designs.
But I do enjoy the over the top melodrama of the show and that’s what really keeps me involved. And I like how they’re just playing a card game, but they make it so melodramatic and over the top and there’s always all these stakes, it just makes it a lot of fun to watch.
So I highly recommend watching Yu-Gi-Oh!, okay. It’s great. I like it.
Gunsmith Cats is basically about two gunsmiths, but they also get hired out to do bounties and different things like that.
They’re very good, one’s an expert shot, one’s an explosive expert. And this is just about guns, cars, and girls.
Emphasis on the cars and the guns. I mean, they lovingly reproduced the sound effects and all the research on all these guns, and there’s something about just the feel of these things.
I don’t know what it is about the show. Maybe it’s just the muscle cars in it, I don’t know. It’s fun, it’s beautiful to look at, and the intro music, very, very cool, kind of very retro, jazzy. It’s great.
My number eight is very popular and I haven’t talked about it, it didn’t make my top ten anime TV series but it’s very highly regarded, and that is Neon Genesis Evangelion.
This is a giant robot show, where the one difference between this and many other giant robot shows is that even though it still follows the formula of the boy getting his grandfather’s or father’s robot, fairly formulaic, saving the earth from alien invasions, but the aliens are a little bit vague and there is a lot of psychological melodrama that goes on with these characters.
The robots are unique because they’re organic and the characters go into these capsules. So the thing that makes this unique is when the character actually goes into the robot, they feel what the robot feels.
That’s the extra step that this show took that made it go a little bit further. My number one anime TV show, if you look at my other list, was Vision of Escaflowne, and they kind of do that a little bit too, but this is the one that kind of invented it.
There’s a lot of other things in it. It’s super melodramatic, it’s very beautifully drawn, it’s frustratingly opaque, and the reason why it’s not even in my top ten AnimeTV series is because the character Shinji, is the most annoying main character ever written.
He is such a wuss, and he’s so whiny, and all he does is whine, and he never actually grows. This is taking the idea of Amuro Ray from Mobile Suit Gundam, the original 79, and Amuro Ray was a little bit whiny, but he grew up and became a man.
This guy never has that happen, and it’s so irritating, but it’s still worth watching.
It’s a very, very unique, very beautifully done anime. I highly recommend it. Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Ranma 1/2 is about this guy who, when he gets hit by water, turns into a girl. Yeah, it’s very, very strange.
It’s under what’s called the harem genre of anime where it’s one guy and a bunch of girls like him, so he’s basically got this harem of girls who are actually madly in love with him, and he has no interest in almost any of them.
In this show, the two main characters of Ranma and Akane are betrothed, so it’s kind of a romantic comedy about these people who, everything they do is martial arts. Everything they do is martial arts. Anything goes, martial arts.
Whatever it is, it has to have martial arts in it. So if it’s cooking, it’s martial arts cooking. If it’s ballet, it’s martial arts ballet. If it’s chess, it’s martial arts chess. Everything involves fighting.
So it’s ridiculous, crazy, weird stuff.
Ranma’s father, when he gets hit by water becomes a panda, and then there’s this other character who gets hit by water and becomes a pig, this other girl gets hit by water and she becomes a cat, and it’s all curses because they went to China and they fell in the spring that cursed them forever for doing that.
It’s just wacky, crazy, and it’s a romantic comedy, and the best bits are when these characters kind of almost admit that they like each other and then don’t really, and it’s full of crazy, wacky, fantastic characters.
There’s a bazillion, bazillion episodes of this show and I’ve got almost all, every single one of them, and I was addicted because it’s so funny, and I really liked it. Highly recommend it. Ranma 1/2.
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust is actually much better than the original Vampire Hunter D.
This is a supernatural horror action-adventure movie with, characters with superpowers. But very supernatural, werewolves, vampires, that sort of thing.
Madhouse produced it. It’s fantastic. I can’t say enough good things.
Well drawn, it’s just got—I don’t know what else to say except you should watch it.
It’s one of the best animes you could possibly watch. My number six is Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust.
Same company, same producers, same director. It’s samurai stuff, let’s see, but there’s nudity, it’s rated R. It’s rated R, heavily rated R. It’s got stuff in it that maybe you don’t want to watch with your kids around.
But again, another one of these things where it’s like, bad guys have all these superpowers and it’s just super powered martial arts coolness action. It’s just action, action, action, with characters with incredible superpowers, and it’s so fun to watch.
This is a series that is stylistically fantastic. Science fiction. It’s just, this is one of the best shows out there, and it is Cowboy Bebop.
Cowboy Bebop is about bounty hunters looking for work in outer space, and the adventures that they have in this very science fiction world. Characters are fantastic, storylines are great.
There’s a general overarching storyline in between all these adventures that these characters have. There’s elements of Lupin the Third, very reminiscent of Lupin.
The kind of guy, the Lupin archetypes, and they just kind of set them up and recreate them in a more space setting.
So I highly recommend watching Cowboy Bebop. It is fantastic.
My number three is from the same producers and directors and writers of Cowboy Bebop and that would be Samurai Champloo. Samurai Champloo is actually beautiful, beautiful art.
The thing that makes this interesting, it’s a samurai show and it’s kind of a historical samurai show, but the way it’s shot, it’s shot like it’s got a hip-hop rhythm to it, in a way they’re trying to direct it in a very hip-hop way.
It’s a lot more lighthearted, it’s a comedy with a lot of action in it. The artwork is incredible, the characters feel a teeny-tiny bit like the characters in Cowboy Bebop, but definitely, definitely, definitely take them to a much more comedic level.
The characters are very archetypical, but if you watch it with an eye towards comedy and action, then you’re going to really, really enjoy it. On top of that, you know the rhythm thing with the hip-hop is really, really interesting.
And I’m going to mention the artwork again, I can’t not mention it because it’s beautiful, it’s really well-drawn. Samurai Champloo.
My number two is another one that I don’t own, I watched it all on Hulu. Oh wait, yes I do, I have the first DVD. And that is Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, I bought the first DVD, I watched it, I watched the first four episodes, and I was not, not, not impressed at all.
I was like,
“Really? This is the most boring show I’ve ever seen, the characters are sitting around talking. It is boring,” okay, so I’m like, “this is terrible.”
But one day I was desperate to watch some cyber-punk, so I started watching the rest of the show on Hulu, and I’m like,
“I’m just going to keep it in the background while I work,” right? So that’s exactly what I did, and I started watching it and watching it and watching it, and then little by little I started realizing how good the show was, but it really took a long time for it to get going.
Once it got going, it was incredible and it was so good. And then the way in which the first season ended was really well done. And then the second season, the way the second season started, it was one of the best episodes.
It was beautiful and it was exciting and it was amazing and it was incredible cyber-punk.
I highly, highly recommend going and watching Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, the TV series.
My number one, I’m not going to talk too much about it, I already dedicated an entire video to it, and that is Giant Robo.
Giant Robo is basically an over the top action-adventure, beautifully drawn series with a giant robot in it and a bunch of characters who are just over the top super powered.
In a lot of ways, very reminiscent of both Vampire Hunter D and Ninja Scroll with the crazy super powered characters, and I’m a sucker for that stuff. I love it, I love that stuff.
So I highly recommend you go watch Giant Robo. That is my number one.
So what do you think? Am I crazy, including what I included in my list?
Let me know. While you’re here, you could also subscribe to my newsletter. If you do, you will get a digital download of my book Angel Cowgirl, which has got a bunch of my artwork in it, it’s my art of book.
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It’s no secret that I like anime. I grew up watching it. I think it’s one of the few sources for unique animated cartoons in the world.
This is NOT a cartoon about outer space like I thought it was. If anything, the title almost makes no sense. It should have been called, “Attack on the Titans,” or “Attack of the Titans.”
One of the things that is just mindbogglingly good is the use of the camera in this cartoon. It’s a hand drawn cartoon but uses CG backgrounds to move through the streets, following the soldiers as they do their thing.
or the 
movie and want to learn more about the DC universe where do you go? What’s the least painful way to do so without having to read a ton of comics?
is a great way to learn about the DC universe, BUT the truth is, Justice League is only one of FOUR DC animated shows the revolve around the same animated Universe.
, 
, 
, and Justice League/
. All of these shows are part of one big story and all take place in one connected superhero universe.
because it’s available there. But if you want a digital copy, just subscribe to newsletter and you’re going to get a copy of that.
