Topic: The Unoffical TV Show Mega Thread

Binged through Aika R-16: Virgin Mission this weekend (currently free on Tubi), which wasn't that hard as it's only 3 episodes long.

Anime OVA miniseries that follows high school student Aika Sumeragi whom after obtaining her salvager's license, she can pilot a sub, is invited by her school's "Adventure Club" to take part in an expedition to a set of mystery coordinates which were hidden in a message within a butterfly tattoo that another, amnesiac, student has. Things won't be easy however, as there are forces aiming to kidnap said student during the trip.

The best I can describe it as is dumb, guilty pleasure, fun. It's so short it's really impossible to become attached to the characters or for it to build any sort of engaging narrative, so it just jumps from one zany scenario to the next. It's full of cheesecake fan service (if you couldn't tell from that title), and it's hard to be disappointed if you're going into it for that (the art direction is pretty simple, but things are typically animated & detailed well. I've seen much worse). The biggest negative I can think of is that it's a bit blurry, either an SD product that's been stretched to fit modern aspect ratios, or an SD copy of an HD production.

I know I am late again, but I just finished the new episode of Obi-Wan. I don't think this has been a good show overall, but every time they use this show as an excuse to absolutely let Vader rip, unleashed in his full glory thanks to the magic of modern cinematic technology... I just feel like all is forgiven. It is just so ***** awesome.

Well, I just saw the final episode of Obi-Wan and can't help but wonder what the point of it all was.
Aside from some cool fight scenes and some nice moments between Kenobi and young Leia, there was nothing in the show as a whole that further develops the Star Wars universe.
All it did was further demystifying Vader.

THIS CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS FOR KENOBI
I, like many others, just finished Kenobi. At first, I thought it was pretty middle-of-the-road. I thought it maybe was building up to something greater that really affects the characters or overall plot of Star Wars in some way. But as the episodes continued, I realized that the show was going nowhere, and I started to dislike it actively. And now that it's concluded, I can definitively say that Kenobi is definitely the worst of the Star Wars shows that Disney has overseen.

I think the biggest problem I have with the show is the recycling of characters and the lack of tension that it brings. We know that Kenobi, Vader, Leia, Luke Owen, and Beru cannot die for obvious reasons. So there is practically zero tension when we see characters get into a dangerous situation because you know they will all come out of it ok. And when there are new characters introduced, like the Imperial girl or the pilot girl or the repair guy or the Inquisitor lady, there is seriously practically zero development of their character, so it's nearly impossible to care for them. And if something bad happens to one of the characters (such as that Imperial girl sacrificing herself), there's just no emotional weight to it.

I have many other problems with the show, but I don't want to just be typing away forever. Okay, fine. One more thing. When the Grand Inquisitor came back, I rolled my eyes so far in the back of my head that I thought I was going to have permanent retinal damage. It was so stupid and a perfect example of how much Disney wants to subvert our expectations with wacky fakeouts and such. In conclusion, I think the show is bad, and my hype and interest for Star Wars is unfortunately at an all-time low. 4/10.

@StarPoint
I agree with pretty much everything you wrote down.
Like I said in my previous post; what was the point? The writing in particular was very bad at certain points.

Not got around to the latest episode of Obi-Wan yet but I did watch the new episode of Ms. Marvel though and I honestly kinda loved it. If this is what the show will be moving forwards, I am fully down for this.

I think it's a shame the show started so slowly and so aimlessly, like I think you could almost skip the first two episodes entirely and just started from episode 3 and you would not be lost. I wonder how many people they lost with those weak first two episodes.

I am also assuming this is another six episode show? And since they basically wasted a third of the show it makes me wonder if that'll hurt the show overall, with them now needing to cram everything into the back end. I guess we'll see.

I finished Obi-Wan and for once I seem to be with the majority here in that I thought the show was pretty rubbish, overall. Bad action scenes, wonky production qualities, questionable writing and the whole thing just felt so unfocused, aimless and full of filler. It sort of feels like they tried to cram two completely different, disconnected and unrelated, Star Wars films together and then padded it out until they created a six episode series.

I will say, I did enjoy pretty much every part of this involving Darth Vader, as a kid brought up on Star Wars, seeing a Darth Vader unleashed with modern cinematic qualities was just a joy throughout. Sadly, this really made up a very small part of the show overall.

I know some people have said this wouldn't have been much of a show if it was just Vader chasing Kenobi for six episodes before they had a showdown at the end, but at least it would have given the show some focus and intent if they had just focused on that part of the story.

Also, I know they made a big deal out of Hayden Christensen coming back, but to me it was really the return of James Earl Jones that took this to the next level. Although the scene where they had Christensen and Jones performances overlapping was a cool moment.

Finished up Obi-Wan Kenobi myself. It was okay.

I think I'll definitely agree that it was definitely at it's best when it was focusing on the Kenobi/Vader angle, and seeing Vader absolutely own the room in the other scenes he was in. You can definitely feel the bloat with how they had to pad it out from it's initial inception as a movie though.

That, and I'll have to cut Moon Knight some slack as Kenobi had the same issues in terms of darkness. The scenes in the rebel hideout in episode in episode 5 were super muddy, and I could barely see what was going on in the final episode when Luke was getting chased in the mountains & when Kenobi got buried under ground. Clearly there's something wrong with how Disney is making these shows.

Finished the first half of Stardust Crusaders. While it is a significant step up for me from Battle Tendency - which easily ranks amongst some of the worst anime I have ever finished - this did not need to be 24 episodes and what goodwill the first half generated, was well and truly lost even long before this was actually over. Honestly, most of this feels like a filler arc. And could probably be quite easily skipped.

Now, it starts off strong - some of this was probably coloured by me just being so happy to be finally done with Battle Tendency, to be honest. But the introduction of the stands, the improved animation, the improved pacing with them building the team and then battling through a series of established villains. This all worked just fine to me. Each villain defeated or resolved or new location visited also gave us insights into characters, who are overall, fairly flat, but still somehow weirdly charming all the same. I never really felt much of a connection to them, but I enjoyed their interactions with one another all the same.

But then by like episode 15, all of the up front established villains are defeated or at least resolved in some way and then just even more villains show up? But they are never established in any way, never mentioned, never explained. Just a whole army of additional villains just materialised out of thin air. They are generally defeated within the same episode they appear in so it just seems like a massive waste of time.

They also don't get anywhere near the primary antagonist for the entire season, to the point where it sorta feels like the real story is starting as the season ends, only further giving this that filler vibe, especially the back half of this.

Admittedly, I have enjoyed plenty of anime and toku in my time which is just villain of the week stuff but Stardust Crusaders makes the stand battle system so boring. Firstly, despite overwhelming us with rules, they are rarely properly followed or always inconsistent. This is one of my biggest writing pet peeves, don't spend time establishing rules with the audience if you have no intention of following them.

But more than this, is how novelty and gimmicky everything is in Jojo. Like this isn't as bad as Battle Tendency, where one action was followed by three episodes of explanation around the action they took. But rather than just having powerful stands clash, there is always some mechanic to the enemy which has to be resolved non-violently first and while that might make a change of pace if used sparingly, when the majority of the fights are 'hah! You can't hit me because of X reason...', just my God does it become boring.

Oh and what also makes it feel like all of it doesn't matter, is the heroes get catastrophic injuries in basically every episode and almost die, but then are always fine in the following episode, even though in the following episode usually only a few hours, maybe a day or two, have gone by. It feels like the show is actively asking the audience to not care about anything.

Oh and there is this weird part to the story where one of the core characters is seemingly killed off. But then some like 11 episodes later it just turns out he was never dead, we learn the whole core cast bar one knew all along he wasn't dead and that is as much as you the audience are ever going to know because the show just moves on. I have to wonder if the author intended for the character to die and then felt pressure by fans to bring them back or something? Because the handling of it is just so bizarre.

They should have made darth maul the enemy in Kenobi. Sure it would have contradicted rebels in the process, but Disney doesn’t really care about breaking Star Wars canon, so that wouldn’t be an issue.

@blindsquarel Star Wars itself has never cared about it’s own canon. Just look at how George sold out and removed the romantic subplot between Luke & Leila! It was a different time then when Back To The Future, Woody Allan and the Royal Family were all about relationships within the family but just because it went out of fashion for a few years they tried to scrub it from existence!!!

@Rambler Which just proved my point. Leila is a princess so of course she should have gone with Luke instead of Solo and then they would have failed to produce Ren just like King Charlsey Boy!

Baymax! hit Disney+ today and it might very well be the most progressive piece of content Disney has ever produced. I'm loving it!

@Rambler Buddha Of Suburbia? This theme song is a bop

Just saw S3E5 of The Orville: A Tale of Two Topas.
This show keeps getting better. It was so emotional and I cried several times during the episode.
This is great sci-fi!

Finally gotten around to watching The Smurfs, the new 2021 show. I don't have cable, so I ordered a DVD of the show as it recently came out. So far, I'm enjoying it. Some elements more than I expected to. I love how it took heavy inspiration from The Lost Village movie, from the environments, right down to featuring some of the Lost Village smurfs like SmurfWillow and SmurfBlossom. I found some episodes funnier than I was anticipating, the Halloween episode was pretty clever too.

Fun little Easter egg, the Smurfs will sometimes be seen eating Belgian waffles, a little nod to their country of origin.

Also, is it me or I find it interesting that Nickelodeon has modern versions of two well known 1980's cartoons, this and TMNT?

What can I say? We Belgians love our waffles. 😋
I used to love the Smurfs as a little kid. That '80s show was all kinds of wonderful.

@Tremblucay Waffles are delicious! Same, I have some of the 80's cartoon on DVD, also the official Smurfs YouTube channel posts full episodes of the classic series. I was really surprise they did that too.

@Sunsy One of my favourite shows The RedGreen Show has all 300 episodes for free on YouTube.

It's a really funny comedy show
https://www.youtube.com/user/RedGreenTV?app=desktop

@Kermit1 Really cool, I love it when the official YouTube channels to shows put up full episodes. Will admit, younger kids got it good when it comes to official full episodes. Can't count how many times I've seen Disney Junior post a full episode of a show on its YouTube channel, while the regular Disney Channel YouTube channel (say that three times fast) barely does it.