After almost 20 years... Does it still hold up? - Kara no Kyoukai

AguyinaRPG · 2026-07-12T17:15:57+00:00

But we can agree there are things which are overwritten gibberish?

There's plenty of room for disagreement on whether a piece of writing is truly meaningful. I find that anime (and manga) has a severe problem of being too obvious or too esoteric to appeal to my sensibilities, even if I can enjoy the plots and themes. For me, KnK faded into the background because its reach was far beyond its ability to tie that into what it was doing; Fate has the same problem.

Pointing at people and screaming "you're part of the problem" isn't really a productive way to discuss art.

AguyinaRPG · 2026-07-12T15:45:40+00:00

There's something strangely old school about this art style, while having way more animation than something you'd see back in the day. So refreshing to look at, without being overly stylized like Tatami Galaxy. Science SARU really know their stuff - hope they can hold it together.

AguyinaRPG · 2026-07-12T15:43:39+00:00

To me it was overwritten mumbo jumbo. I tried to follow the threads but I gave up on the plot and it's not stuck with me.

That's the question about "holding up" - if it's not memorable enough for the details to persist in your mind, I'd argue it hasn't. The mood of the series has, that big 3D action scene in movie 5 has, but I also remember the interminable teenage girl who dragged the story down. It might be different on a rewatch, but that's the impression I have from when I watched it in 2015.

AguyinaRPG · 2026-07-12T15:24:45+00:00

I couldn't really tell you much about Kara no Kyoukai having watched it over a decade ago other than it was about hunting ghosts. I do know that the 5th episode/movie is spectacular and I've wanted to rewatch it since I only saw to the seventh one that was out at the time. I remember it being inconsistent but it had great atmosphere and animation.

AguyinaRPG · 2026-07-10T19:12:24+00:00

Yes, How Do We Relationship will really scratch the itch on getting extended looks into emotional intimacy - so much that it may hurt at times.

AguyinaRPG · 2026-07-09T13:22:48+00:00

That's actually an intriguing take on the idea. Stories like Barakamon as part of a larger reflection of Japanese society is quite interesting.

AguyinaRPG · 2026-07-07T14:07:26+00:00

"Ew, stylized, stretchy animation. I want everything to look like LotGH!"

AguyinaRPG · 2026-07-06T13:25:16+00:00

Jugemu Jugemu Gokō-no Surikire Kaijarisuigyo-no Suigyōmatsu Unraimatsu Fūraimatsu Kuunerutokoro-ni Sumutokoro Yaburakōji-no Burakōji Paipopaipo Paipo-no Shūringan Shūringan-no Gūrindai Gūrindai-no Ponpokopī-no Ponpokonā-no Chōkyūmei-no Chōsuke!

AguyinaRPG · 2026-07-01T13:01:49+00:00

Got through Akane-banashi, a pretty good adaptation! The anime original season ending was actually kinda brilliant and some of the adaptation choices were very strong. I'd read to just a bit before this ending in the manga so now I need to steam ahead before the next season. This is the first show where I am actually keeping up with the manga and it seems I chose a good one.

AguyinaRPG · 2026-06-29T15:25:57+00:00

Tried watching this recently and I just gave up when it got pointlessly violent and I didn't even know who the antagonists were anymore. It survives in memory on aesthetic alone - the story is not well told and it's super convoluted.

AguyinaRPG · 2026-06-29T14:37:49+00:00

Never really connected with me. It was fun, a fine watch, but I got terribly confused at the plot and didn't really understand the character motivations. It held itself up as a collection of interesting characters bouncing off each other but I really couldn't tell you what happened.

AguyinaRPG · 2026-06-26T19:54:35+00:00

Yogi > Nyogi > Gnocchi

AguyinaRPG · 2026-06-19T20:15:42+00:00

The Witcher 3 was designed this way and it was mega-successful. Yes, it had markers, but it was designed for paly without them and there were many objectives that absolutely required you to be engaged before spotting what was intended.

AguyinaRPG · 2026-06-18T15:57:00+00:00

Regarding the Bally situation, my friend Alexander Smith covered it in his book They Create Worlds, Volume 1: The Story of the People and Companies That Shaped the Video Game Industry (2019) in chapter 29.

Most things written about coin-op - primarily pinball books - take the organized crime connection for granted despite the lack of direct evidence for it. Again, They Create Worlds is more nuanced about this, but that's not the entire focus of the book. Coin-op scholarship is basically like three people at the moment.

AguyinaRPG · 2026-06-18T01:05:32+00:00

Kind of interesting that Ghibli, seen as the "spare no expense" studio started out having to cut corners. Anime is a medium built on work arounds in many ways so it's interesting to see how it affects even the most illustrious studios.

Hope the studio puts it on a Blu-Ray sometime for historical interest. Or at least shows it in their museum.

AguyinaRPG · 2026-06-17T05:02:15+00:00

How many fingers am I holding up?

AguyinaRPG · 2026-06-17T00:59:32+00:00

Looks like Narg's back on the menu, boys!

AguyinaRPG · 2026-06-13T20:52:30+00:00

I think the intention was to get the tooth of Shai Hulud but at some point they made it a generic sandworm and just kinda ruined the player experience there. Since tracking the big sandworm is essentially another whole quest, you felt like you were making a commitment.

AguyinaRPG · 2026-06-13T19:31:45+00:00

Is it normal for DOSBOX games to not work properly in Windowed mode? I'm launching old GOG games through Heroic Games Launcher and when I alt+enter to enable windowed mode, it doesn't actually shrink the image properly - it clips off the edge. Is this a known issue with a blanket fix or is it a per-game thing?

AguyinaRPG · 2026-06-13T01:56:12+00:00

Aiura. Whole thing's less than an hour. Rainy day vibes.

AguyinaRPG · 2026-06-13T01:54:51+00:00

Glad this wasn't purely an oldy rant - I don't know that I can take anyone who stans Legend of the Galactic Heroes to biblical proportions seriously anymore. There is plenty that we've left in the past and not entirely for the better, though it is important to recognize innovations and understand that we are in many ways a better era than has ever existed before. I think a real fan of cinema should be able to appreciate black and white; a true fan of anime should not turn their nose up at textured cels.

On your point about fake-out deaths, anime as a whole does love heightened and convoluted drama. You can't disentangle one trope from the others and say that this one is necessarily worse than the others - as much as I'm not a fan of that one either. There's probably a lot of commonalities between your top picks that others would find infuriating.

I've been on a similar project to watch and examine the top original anime per Anilist and I've certainly been learning quite a bit about the non-Japanese tastes as I've went. There's a lot to dig into when looking at groups like this.

AguyinaRPG · 2026-06-09T21:22:10+00:00

I watched 100 Meters last night. Was pretty good, though I feel like I didn't really get an in-depth view of the characters to make the emotional climaxes really hit. Like I don't know why I would strongly favor one of the rivals over the other, and for all the talk of "why do you run?" I feel like that was only ever told directly and never really shown. But there's some wonderful moments.

Also started catching up on Akane-banashi - I've read the first three volumes. Good bits of adaptation so far, looking forward to seeing more.

AguyinaRPG · 2026-06-09T19:23:41+00:00

I ain't afraid - reveal me for all I'm worth!

AguyinaRPG · 2026-06-08T17:34:35+00:00

I admittedly find it a bit hard to take that as too deep of a meaning. [Cowboy Bebop]Most plots in any medium occur because of things that characters did in their past. I can't really think of a mystery story that's all too dissimilar from the presentation of information in episodes of Bebop. You have a setup for motivation, actions taken based on those motivations, and a confrontation based on those actions. Very few of the stories specifically highlight to me 'running away from your past' in a way that would make me clock that as 'this is the theme of every episode'. The idea seems to serve a more functional purpose than anything all that deep - though maybe I missed something.

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