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MFrontier
Joined: 13 Apr 2014
Posts: 11233
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Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 4:26 pm
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Props to Bang Zoom for getting back the English VA's from Fairy Tail for their lookalikes in this show.
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immblueversion
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Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 4:50 pm
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If I had to pick one way to describe this series without holding it up to Fairy Tail, it's "cynically optimistic".
Shiki is the kind of guy who craves friendship to an almost nauseating degree. In any other series of its ilk, this would be contested by the villains, who'd automatically be in the wrong. Here? His crusade is challenged and scoffed at by everyone. Not just bad guys and jerks, but random people on the street, and even the very people he does form a genuine bond with. He's not just rewarded for his lack of restraint all the time, and yet he sticks to his beliefs without being oblivious to how others think of him. Hell, he even knows when to call it quits with someone when it becomes clear they aren't worth the effort. This, in its own twisted genius, actually makes Shiki loop around from obnoxious to endearing.
I have no doubt Mashima is drawing from experience over what people think of him and his work on Fairy Tail (the subversive "MC joins a guild and expects to make friends there" scene is beyond on-the-nose on that). He always reads the good and the bad, and the end result has to be this: a story about a boy who seeks friendship in a world that's more than weary of it. For anyone who's expecting just another retread of Fairy Tail from those first two episodes...you may be in for a little surprise.
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Punch Drunk Marc
Joined: 04 Oct 2013
Posts: 1742
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Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 6:04 pm
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EZ is a lot of things, "good looking" is certainly NOT one of them.
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Farafra
Joined: 29 Jan 2021
Posts: 104
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Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 6:39 pm
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MFrontier wrote: | Props to Bang Zoom for getting back the English VA's from Fairy Tail for their lookalikes in this show. |
Part of me really wants to believe they did that as a joke, but the dub is really solid all around.
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immblueversion
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Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 6:41 pm
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Punch Drunk Marc wrote: | EZ is a lot of things, "good looking" is certainly NOT one of them. |
Not bad to look at, either. Most of it is rough-looking to be sure, but nothing is distractingly off model. But the most impressive thing about the anime's visuals is the color palette. The manga has so many seedy futuristic cities that you'd mix up easily, but in the anime, you'd never confuse the pale artificial light of Norma with the foreboding, deathly gloom of Guilst. That's one edge the anime has over the manga.
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Amuro1X
Joined: 02 Sep 2009
Posts: 175
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Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 8:26 pm
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Farafra wrote: |
MFrontier wrote: | Props to Bang Zoom for getting back the English VA's from Fairy Tail for their lookalikes in this show. |
Part of me really wants to believe they did that as a joke, but the dub is really solid all around. |
Why would it be a joke? The Japanese dub did the same thing.
Elsie and Justice are minor characters in the grand scheme of things, but it was always clear that Mashima intentionally made them identical to Jellal and Erza. You're supposed to compare them and that makes the differences stand out more. If you watched Fairy Tail, you'll know the differences when you see them, if you didn't, then they're just fresh characters to you.
At the end of the day, Mashima uses recurring elements, but he's not telling the same story.
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James02
Joined: 10 Sep 2014
Posts: 175
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Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 8:52 pm
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Why is this review 20 weeks late?
I don't mean to come off as mean I am just curious.
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immblueversion
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Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 9:12 pm
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James02 wrote: | Why is this review 20 weeks late?
I don't mean to come off as mean I am just curious. |
Because Netflix is a bunch of jailers who forced people to pirate until the show became legal to watch outside of Japan, and only the first 12 episodes to boot.
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James02
Joined: 10 Sep 2014
Posts: 175
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Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 11:06 pm
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immblueversion wrote: |
James02 wrote: | Why is this review 20 weeks late?
I don't mean to come off as mean I am just curious. |
Because Netflix is a bunch of jailers who forced people to pirate until the show became legal to watch outside of Japan, and only the first 12 episodes to boot. |
So Netflix is the reason. I didn't even know they had this. Darn Netflix getting into anime.
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immblueversion
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Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 11:24 pm
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James02 wrote: |
immblueversion wrote: |
James02 wrote: | Why is this review 20 weeks late?
I don't mean to come off as mean I am just curious. |
Because Netflix is a bunch of jailers who forced people to pirate until the show became legal to watch outside of Japan, and only the first 12 episodes to boot. |
So Netflix is the reason. I didn't even know they had this. Darn Netflix getting into anime. |
At any rate, it's not all that bad besides the lack of weekly discussion and the likelihood that they'll label the second half as "Season 2". The show has more international exposure, and the dubbers at Bang Zoom got their hands on the essential Funimation dub actors no one expected them to get.
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luisedgarf
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 656
Location: Guadalajara, Mexico
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Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 11:49 pm
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Well, that's right. Unlike Fairy Tail, this show had a Latin American Spanish dub, and a pretty good one to boot.
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jr240483
Joined: 24 Dec 2005
Posts: 4378
Location: New York City,New York,USA
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Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2021 1:33 am
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Farafra wrote: |
MFrontier wrote: | Props to Bang Zoom for getting back the English VA's from Fairy Tail for their lookalikes in this show. |
Part of me really wants to believe they did that as a joke, but the dub is really solid all around. |
surprised that bang zoom is even doing the dub for i was under the assumption that mashima did the same thing similar to what arakawa did with arslan senki (the heroic legend of arslan) as well as the manga authors of both fruit basket & SM Crystal and that is by having a personal hand regarding the english dub.
hell, most people wouldnt even bat an eye or complained if mashima personally requested that funi, specifically the fairy tail dub staff handle the english dub.
but whats more surprising that unlike tia, & leigh, colleen & jelall's VA arent independent VAs! they are very tied to the hip with the texas unions so it must have been something major BZ did for them to suddendly do a 180!
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Johan Eriksson 9003
Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Posts: 281
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Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2021 5:33 am
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I think it is pretty fair to compare Mashima's current work to his previous ones, because he pretty much invites that comparison himself. Each new manga he makes is more like a Final Fantasy-style sequel than a new work altogether or a simple ripoff where concepts, names and characters are re-used and refined. Just like you will always find moogles,chocoboes and a character named Cid who has something to do with airships in FF so too will you always meet dogs that look nothing like dogs, winged cats and one really handsome anti-hero in a Mashima story.
So far I like EZ better than Fairy Tail or Rave Master. It has a real "anything goes" mentality in terms of story and physics but tones back the hyper-optimism and over-reliance on the power of friendship as a mechanic.
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Amuro1X
Joined: 02 Sep 2009
Posts: 175
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Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2021 6:41 am
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Johan Eriksson 9003 wrote: | I think it is pretty fair to compare Mashima's current work to his previous ones, because he pretty much invites that comparison himself. Each new manga he makes is more like a Final Fantasy-style sequel than a new work altogether or a simple ripoff where concepts, names and characters are re-used and refined. Just like you will always find moogles,chocoboes and a character named Cid who has something to do with airships in FF so too will you always meet dogs that look nothing like dogs, winged cats and one really handsome anti-hero in a Mashima story. |
That's a good comparison to make. Back when I was in elementary school, I remember when FFVIII came out and I saw the characters and thought "Hey, that's Tifa!" looking at Rinoa. And I always did (and still do) seeing the series mascots appear in each new installment. Mashima is definitely a gamer, and that's evident in his reused elements in different works. They're always re-contextualized, but it's also like a signature, and I respect that. I mean, it's clear that the Sieg/Jellal/Justice archetype is his favorite character and he always finds a way to work him in. Even before Erza, there was Mummy from Monster Soul that served as her "prototype" basically, and though she was a main character in FT, she's a minor one at best in EZ as Elsie. But her association with Erza immediately tells you that Elsie is powerful and not to be taken lightly. Her initial introduction as a villain makes you question everything you thought you knew, and later as her relationship with Justice is revealed, you wonder how exactly it's going to differ from the Erza/Jellal dynamic.
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me_barron
Joined: 14 Sep 2014
Posts: 173
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Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2021 9:53 am
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Wish they would cut back on all the pervy "jokes." It's actually worse than Mineta from MHA.
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