SpiritChaser
About
Showcase: Drowning in Nana
Worth More Than The World: Dead Demon's Destruction
The Gurren Lagann of Ice Skating: Medalist
Behind My Dark Glasses (Captain Kuro AMV)
Subconscious Entertainment (Paprika)
Succumbing to Alien 9
Liberation: Air (The Motion Picture)
Salvation: Haibane Renmei
Obsession: Dear Brother
Possession: Berserk (1997)
The Last Great Dezaki Anime Everyone Missed
Brain Powerd Is Good
The Brutality Of Space Runaway Ideon 2
Galaxy With You (Victory Gundam AMV)
Beauty And Oppression: Turn A Gundam
Passion and Macross 7
My Youtube Channel where I do more anime analysis And Best Worst Videos Playlist:
https://youtu.be/vwMobgPkXjU?list=PL9pmYgIA3IjmzrsoLynJ-MirGP02Db_gMThis is an extension of https://myanimelist.net/profile/Spirit_Chaser
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/spirit_chaser
Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/Contreras2992
My list of anime is severely incomplete here. Check MAL for everything.
4-19-2022
I started watching anime during the 90s. I grew up with the typical American experience of mainstream shonen, among other things. Lots of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokemon, Tenchi Muyo, Inuyasha, Cardcaptor Sakura, Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, and Adult's Swim's FLCL and Cowboy Bebop. I didn't know where to look and gave up anime in the 2010's after being disappointed with a lot of the more recent Ghibli films. Several years later, I watched Neon Genesis Evangelion because it was always on the back of my mind from all the mentions. Then, shortly after, I watched Satoshi Kon's Millenium Actress and Paprika, and my love for the medium returned thanks to those three, especially Evangelion. For the past two years, I dramatically changed my tastes and began to research and explore. Now. I've found so many wonderful series, and most recently, watched K'On! and felt it as a turning point, securing myself in my mind that I want to keep exploring this world of animation and talking about it for as long as I can. Slowly, I realized what I want to do, I made a plan, and found the main message I want to express. That I won't say yet but only subtly for now.
It's not about me. I just want to pull people forward and make them want to be somebody with their passions. I'm limited with what I can do on a production level, but the message has no limitations. Pick up the camera, pick up the pen, and express yourself with honesty. The best way I can give this advice is by being a good example of it.
Watch the classics. Know your history. Learn the context and the methods of the old masters. To understand present anime, understand past anime and how it paved the way and molds the future.
My experience in anime has given me my own type of analysis. It's not so unique in that I at least try to be honest. My thoughts on a series are made up by the type and amount of anime I have watched. Considering my favorites, you could say I've given myself really high standards. In the ocean of analysis, I'm just a drop to the billions of different types of thought processes out there. I often wonder if I am right in anything. The truth feels like to most uncertain thing sometimes; a word that possibly doesn't exist. Objectivity in anime doesn't exist either and public opinion is still an opinion. What do I look for in anime? It's more complex but sounds simple: A feeling. A feeling that all my favorites bring me at some point regardless of what they are. And from all I have watched, Satoshi Kon is the master who is best at this.
I cannot accept it. I hear it all the time: Sonny Boy is pretentious; I don't get it so it's bad. I've had to tell off even popular anime youtubers not for the sake of it but to counter their hostile and ignorant accusations at me. Have they ever watched the mystery genre? What is visual story telling? It's plain and simple what Sonny Boy is trying to tell you; it's in the dialogue. Director Shingo Natsume's writing is partly based in the absurd; the uncertainty of life. Trying to understand everything in Sonny Boy is self-defeating and pointless. Saying I don't know IS an answer. Not every piece of media is going to spoonfeed you everything. I was personally fascinated with the wonder of mystery in this series. Granted, you don't have to like Sonny Boy, but at least try to understand what it was trying to do. The best anime nowadays can be the most hated. It shocked me just how much hate Sonny Boy got, and frustrating how ignorant it all was. At least it warms me up to see people appreciate it a lot more now. Even other great anime like Odd Taxi wasn't liked at first and made fun of. Now it is beloved and even popular Anime youtubers realized the mistake they made and reversed, picking it up to misunderstand it to the public in the end.
Sonny Boy feels like a ghost in the medium. Something sincere in anime that barely exists anymore. I want to find something modern than can beat my favorites. I want to find something that can surpass Ashita no Joe or Legend of The Galactic Heroes, but I haven't found it yet. I spent all year last year watching an ocean of seasonal anime that I only came out liking around 25% of. When it came to Sonny Boy, the running scene in the end finally brought back that feeling. A feeling of heart and soul than be felt in my favorites that I mentioned earlier. I look for this feeling in anime.
Too many times I run into lifeless anime. Souless, bland storytelling. Still frames with flapping mouths; slide show tier anime. Stiff mannequins for a main cast. I can appreciate older anime for at least trying to animate a whole characters' body; the body language, giving everyone unique faces, and actually animating backgrounds uniquely instead of today's lifeless CGI crowds. Where are we now? Technological advancement has made animators lazy. Budget goes out the window so many times even in beloved anime. It was so disappointing that Dragon Ball Super, a giant in the medium, return with horrifying animation. It doesn't help that some studios overwork their staff like Cloverworks, resulting in rushed trash like Wonder Egg Priority that had so much potential. I found so much generic music thrown in in anime with no purpose. Literally noise that is poorly written oftentimes and used incorrectly. So many main characters all written like cowards with no real growth. The profit motive has destroyed anime so badly it is nearly unrecognizable to me now. Still, keep in mind that good and bad anime has always been there.
I was confused. Even respectable staff members were putting out disappointing passion projects. I looked at what is the most popular and realize I can't stand what is in the mainstream. I feel as if I am at war not with an individual, but with a mentality in anime that I hate. The death of mentality in the anime viewer frustrates me as it plagues every part of the internet with its reach. Why do I watch so much bad anime? Partly because it justifies my opinion to criticize it properly. Some disasters like Tesla Note can be hilarious and entertaining at least. Others like 86 can feel painful to go through at times.
Everywhere I went I felt misunderstood. People are offended by the way I think. However, they should feel that way. I should be ruffling feathers. I'm not going to lie to myself and become a coward to satisfy people who don't care about me anyways. I don't want to fit in and be normal. I'm not going to roll my windows up if I am blasting Super Deminsion Fortress Macross's soundtrack in my car at red lights or feel ashamed in public for enjoying anime. I recognize that my production value is garbage in my Youtube channel, but it's the words that are most important if you think about it. And it's convenient for those who want to just hear something. Either way I can't afford to show you pretty editing at the moment. If you look at the analytics, this channel has more dislikes than likes overall, and that's fine. You can't convince all the people all the time, and many are so closeminded and full of themselves they don't like anyone who doesn't have their same favorites list. If you want everyone to think the same way about anime like you, you are delusional. I can accept people who don't like my favorites if they can at least give me legitimate criticism explaining why. I can do it for you:
The Ashita no Joe anime oftentimes betrays the manga. As amazing as Dezaki is, I can acknowledge the flaws. You have anime only characters like the Tange Dampei gym's doctor who were essentially pointless and suddenly written out of the story with no explanation. The voice acting can be harsh such as Nishi's voice actor constantly screeching into the mic. You have the fight against Harimou which was decent in the manga, but rushed and made worse in the anime. The story is incoherent from transitioning from Ashita no Joe 1 to 2 and 1 went far out into its own story in the first one since the manga wasn't finished at the time. One of the changes I did not like from the staff in the anime only content is the treatment of Nishi. He was a wonderful character in Ashita no Joe 1-literaly a philosopher-but in 2, he is supposed to move on with life, but the anime staff kept plugging him in and reduced him to an irrelevant background character. I could go on and on, but these are a few problems.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes, though uses classical music to great effect, constantly cuts the songs off in awkward ways that can ruin a scene or character death. Rubinsky was written out in a very anti-climactic way. All that build up for nothing. I get it; that the series wants to show that not all tragedies need a dramatic way to fold out, but it did it far too many times to too many important characters. Many people complain about the Terraists, but I can appreciate that they were like shadows causing trouble all over space. Their main leader should have had more screen time though as in the end I cared very little about his character.
Macross, as incredible as it is, suffered from production issues that resulted in some hilariously bad animation. Minmay and Lisa sometimes look like clay people as a result. Milia's eyes move out position at one point which was horrifying to watch. Some of the fights were reduced to embarrassing power point presentations. The series feels like it should have ended a lot sooner, but I give them credit for an amazing final arc.
I could go on down the list but I think the point of doing this has been made clear.
Where are we now? In a dark place. Maybe I'm taking cartoons too seriously, but I love a good story that can bring meaningful emotions out of me. Sometimes it's not a sad scene that can bring a tear to my eye, but amazing and beautiful execution. In this little corner of the internet, I'm shouting in the dark and writing to blind eyes, but I can at least express myself in a satisfying way that can be left behind after I'm not here anymore where at least one person might appreciate it in the distant future.
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A GLOBAL EXISTENTIAL CRISIS: Comparing The World Of Texhnolyze With Ours: 2 Different Nightmares
The world of Texhnolyze is depicted as a hopelessly depressing nightmare where suffering never ends in the underworld and sinister-like, purpose defeating complacency, extinction, and fantasy thought dooms the surface world. Based on my experience and observation, our world is in a terrifying category of its own.
Despite taking steps forward in techonology, humans have stepped backwards in spirituallity; where it matters most. In the west, just to point fingers, people are dependant on machines, phones, and computers. Hundreds of years ago these poeople could have survived perfectly fine in the wild and have the necessary skills to survive. In modern times, Westerners have proved that humans are becoming more useless and skill-less than ever before. People are so lazy and ignorant it would not surprise me if these people started to move backwords in evolution. Put this together with a system of social media that has drifted people apart rather than bring them together. There are those who have thousands of friends, but feel lonely and miserable because they don't know any of them personally. All those clicks and likes give them a hollow sense of validation that becomes addicting yet unsatisfying in the end. It's a degenerate dependancy that promotes feelings of depression and further isolation.
They work jobs that they can't stand, are taken advantage of and abused as workers, and dare to say, "I can't complain," or "it could be worse." Self-defeating foolishness. The system in place is designed for most people to fail. That is a necessity. It is a necessity to the power structure for most to fail. Who else will fill in the majority of those harsh and slave laboring positions? Automation and cybernation is still moving to replace these people, and when it does, will the richest still have a need for the poorest to exist?
Why do good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people? Why are all those corrupt, evil, and murderous rich politicans living such luxurious lyfestyles while the good and poor live and die miserable ones? Living a hell on earth because you'll go to heaven after? You've been tricked into believing that. Your life here matters to.
But Texhnolyze isn't all about doom and gloom. It warns us and advices us to find meaning in our lives and in others; to find meaning in our humanity and in others. It shakes us into realizing these terrible emotions as a wake up call. The characters in the series, despite losing limbs and taking heavy damage, they continue to go on; they refuse to give up. Their extreme passion to continue despite their problems is an inspirational message to those who are in a similar situation. And I felt empty at the end of the series; but that made me see things more clearly. As they say, "only when it gets dark enough can you see the stars." Though it looked unfortunate for Ichise in the conclusion, there was a sense of satisfaction and optomism in his smile; he never gave up and kept going. Though Yoshii didn't live long enough to finish carrying out his mission, he too left us with a smile; he never gave up and kept going. There was a sense of satisfaction in the end.
This is a savage world. The only way to be able to face that and overcome it is to look directly at it. Don't look away or bury your head in the sand. Look at reality, not the way you want to see things. Most people will runaway and stay in their dream like world. Thus, they lead a meaningless, aimless, and false existence. Most people will grow up believing immature and unrealistic fantasies as children, and die never growing out of that. Their minds never quite mature. They grow physically but not mentally. The education system has taught you what to think and not how to think. What is happening to revolutionary thought? Have you noticed how Fascism is moving to completely destroy it? And yet, People on the brink of self destruction seem to always turn towards religion as their last mental crutch in the end to help them keep some sense of hope. Take a look at your friends face, and though there may be a smile, what have they got to smile about? Smiling through a lonely life that progressively loses meaning and direction, but feeling greatful and satisfied. "I can't complain." "It could be worse." the grin grows bigger. For these generations who aren't as fortunate, they suffer a death of the spirit. This is the type of delusion that reminds me off the surface world in Texhnolyze. The desperation of living in poverty in broken down and exploited cities left abondoned by the rich and the world to rot shows that our underworld is also there, sometimes right accross the street.
But there are people who learn to overcome this. Those who see the situation clearly, who question and find out that everything is backwards, and who plan and go to make a move similiary to why Yoshii felt he had to. And I have to. To give meaning back to humanity. Those of us who see things more clearer need to help others see it too. You can't convince all the people all the time, so don't feel unmotivated if some don't listen. There are those who naturally flock to the truth. The more you see this world we live in the uglier you'll see it gets. The little that makes it beautiful is slowly slipping away and being killed off. What do you want to accomplish?
In the end, will you smile?
