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| Undead Fred 2860th Post
 
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
    
    
    
    
     
|  "Re(2):Paprika!" , posted Sat 16 Jun 11:19
quote:
So how is this Paprika story-wise? Gorgeous visuals and strange hallucinatory narratives can be interesting, though the other side of me feels like I've been seeing almost too much of that coming out of animation directors lately...surrealism is cool I suppose, but I could use a little more.
Well, that's why I like it... the visuals are beautiful, but unlike a lot of stupid movies coming out these days- it's actually got a story. The surrealism isn't just superficial; it works well with what's happening in the story. I'm sure you read the synopsis, but basically, the main character is a psychologist that uses a brand-new technology that allows her to dive into people's dreams to diagnose and treat them. Let's just say something happens to it and she has to stop the problem before it gets out of hand.
Anyway, I loved the characters, and the animation and visuals were excellent. And yes, the story's great as well (trust me, I'd be complaining already if the movie was all visuals and no story... I'm tired of that too).
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| Undead Fred 2865th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(7):Paprika!" , posted Sun 17 Jun 05:22
quote:
Thanks, Fred, sounds like it might be right up my alley after all. Beautiful visuals and a strange story are great, I was just getting tired of the trend I was seeing in (largely Japanese) works where the surreal was substituting for any real storytelling innovation beyond a unique brand of confusion and leaving me with only pretty pictures. I just may check this one out.
Heh heh. Well, there are also a lot of movies like that in the US as well (moreso in live action stuff, but animation's done it too). THIS LOOKS SO REAL AND THE TEXTURES ARE AMAZING AND ITS SO COLORFUL ...like jingling car keys for a baby. Heh heh. Anyway, nah, I didn't have a hard time following the story and I enjoyed it. It was surreal, but like I said, it felt purposeful instead of just WHOA THAT WAS TRIPPY LOLLLLL
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| nobinobita
119th Post
Regular Customer
| "Re(3):Paprika!" , posted Tue 19 Jun 10:47
While we're at it, if you liked Mindgame, have you seen Kemonozume?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemonozume
Imagine if everyone working on Mindgame got the greenlight to produce an artsy fartsy TV show about slaying monsters, cos that's pretty much what happened.
It's the most rewarding TV show I've seen in a very long time (animated or otherwise). It's got very experimental animation, but most importantly, everything in it is done to support a very intersting, unique (and coherent) story.
It was very low budget, so it's very rough looking, but at the same time the direction is fantastic, and the character animation is especially good.
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| Undead Fred 2871th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(3):Paprika!" , posted Tue 19 Jun 11:20
quote:
I got bad news regarding a stateside release of it though:
http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/000923.html
This was posted a while ago, so i dunno if it's still relevant, but according to that article the people who want to release Mindgame in the US also want to edit it so that the characters appear to be white instead of Japanese.
Well, if they really are doing that to it, then the US producers clearly have no idea what's going on in our culture... Not only do we have this weird idea that animation is only for kids, but there was that huge anime popularity explosion years ago that's got a lot of people in the proper age range interested in JAPANESE STUFF. There is and has been a bit of a backlash, but it's not to the point where anime's taken a dive back to the underground and they'd need to turn the characters into white people in a Japanese movie just to get people to watch.
If they're doing a localized remake sort of thing (like in the case of the Ring, the Grudge, and Pulse), then that's not TOO bad (since they usually release the original on DVD in some for), but if they edit the ethnicity of the characters in the movie and call it the original version, then that's unacceptable. I'll take a bootleg over that, thanks. The only thing that makes me think twice about the movie is that they compared it to Waking Life... personally, I didn't like Waking Life because it was like listening to college student pseudo-philosophy. Like watching the Matrix Reloaded. Waking Life's visuals were nice, but I could still get that from their other films like a Scanner Darkly or something like that.
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| a beholder
18th Post
New Customer
| "Re(6):Paprika!" , posted Sat 23 Jun 12:27
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The sheer concept of that annoys me since one of my pet peeves with alot of anime is obviously Japanese character who don't look Japanese at all.
well, since there's already commentary on it....
First time I saw the sushi chef on Simpsons, I thought "why's his eyes so damn squinty?". Finding out that was suppose to be the characteristic that made them not-white was one of the curious events of childhood.
I'd say one generally associates race with whatever majority we grew up with.
Or the attitudes one has towards different races.
Anime fangirls with naked Gackt poster on their bedroom wall will think the cast of DeathNote looks Japanese.
WWII Nazi's didn't think they had big jew noses, those were reserved for covetous jews. Americans didn't think they had big Frankfurter noses, those were reserved for Nazi Germans. Asian depictions of generic white dudes usually have big fat noses, no matter if they're German or American or whatever.
:)
what ethnicity is that smiley face? Like that.
Humans all basically have the same two eyes, a nose, a mouth. With stylizations, the little differences are usually swept up.
Though with Mindgame... I thought the style showed racial features a little more than usual. To think the main guy n' girl are white seems really odd to me. To think they somehow don't look Asian... well, shit, do they need Simpsons squint eyes then?
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| Undead Fred 2876th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(1):you chinese or japanese?" , posted Sat 23 Jun 17:34
quote:
with a US release, how should it be marketted anyways?
Paprika being Japanese was empasised in the trailers,
even had a quote from that review which was pretty much "JAPAN IS SUPERIOR LOL KIDDY SANDBOX"
Say with videogames, Nintendo's commercials really emphasise the Japanese origins of the Wii, with those dudes driving around with their accents.
Well, that's the point I was trying to make. If the rumors for Mindgame ARE true, then there is no reason at all for them to edit out the Asian part of the movie. Like I said, "Japanese stuff" is still very popular in the US... so if there is a producer that feels the need to edit that out in order to release it here, then it really shows how ignorant they are of the market they are catering to.
Anyway, I finally got to get my Paprika fix today... unfortunately I had left a little late and didn't think about traffic holding me back, so I missed a fair amount at the beginning... that really sucked. Anyway, did anyone else get to catch it tonight?
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