Change Your Image
jamiebcartwright
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Lists
An error has ocurred. Please try againReviews
Dragon Quest: Your Story (2019)
Pacing doesn't exist
I'll be blunt, i hated this movie.
I don't know anything about Dragon Quest apart from that it is a very popular RPG game in Japan but I am a fan of the art director and fantasy worlds in general so jumped into this with optimism.
It all falls apart. Let's break it down:
- The film doesn't have any sense of pace or story telling direction. You jump through ludicrous names, locations and events all within 9 minutes of the movie with time skipping, character development flying by and by 25 minutes in, I had no idea who anyone was or any kind of connection to any character because the film doesn't allow you to digest what is happening. It's GO GO GO.
- The art style is pretty wack. It can look pretty in scenes but doesn't look anything like Akira Toriyama's art which it's based on and it looks incredibly plastic. Also, the characters eyes are really far apart and there is a lot of derpy faces going on. It's like it wanted to be Anime but realistic at the same time?
- The animation is very weirdly distracting and loose. Every character never stops fidgeting or moving. For example, when two characters are "trying" to explain something, they're hopping all over the place and overly emoting like crazy so it just distracts you.
- Dialog flies by waaaay too fast. This causes issues in that one; you have really got to play attention to the subs and two, if you're watching the dub they talk faster than your brain can acknowledge.
I hated it. The only redeeming factor is that I acknowledge the time and effort that went into the animation of it but everything about it sucked.
Seinto Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac (2019)
There's pacing and then there is flat our sprinting
Visually, i thought this was great. Animated to English dialogue in mind and i thought the English dub was strong and convincing. Wasn't typical bad Anime CG but actually quite competent and pleasant to look at and a nice "feel" to it.
However, this alllll goes to the side when the story, script and pacing is almost non existent. I'm a man with not a lot of time on his hands and can't binge watch a show so the thought of 6 episodes for a season was great but holy heck does the story move at break neck pace. Here's an example for you:
Opening episode leaves our main character stranded in a forest. Next episode, from the 1st second shows him like 6 years later, in a town, participating in a tournament after having trained with a teacher.
Wait, what????? Did we miss an episode?? And the whole show is like this. Characters talk to each not in any kind of normal way but as if it is a show being watched so it pulls you out of the immersion. They talk more to the audience than to each other which means this is a show aimed more at children, which though is fine if that's meant to be the case.
It's basically power rangers, with an anime sheen on it.