"How peculiar. Oh my, yes!"

(If you know who I just mimicked, color me impressed - and the voice actor satisfied that he left that much of an impression with you. ;) )

Western Animation

I have typed out a lot in the pre-write for Yatsufusa's Anime Overview Catch-Up (Q2 2025) (Spoiler Free!) but at the same time, I have next to no space remaining in said article. So I'm making two posts back-to-back.

(I would usually be more hesitant about this, but we have users who casually create 3 News Post on some days.)

Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld

『そんなに気にしない』

Words can not express how little care about the Star Wars franchise these days. So I would not watch this, even if I had access.

It's Star Wars. It has a high budget. They went out of their way to make the animation look "state of the art", adding a million micro-movements to every single character, to ensure all of it looks "realistic"... And in a few short years from now it will look like absolute dog shit, because they chose 3D animation over actual animation.

Such is life...

"Next...!"

Blood of Zeus

『ゼウスの血』

The internet says Season 3 just came out (on Netflix).

Season 1 was Meh.

Season 2 was Meh.

I do not need the help of 3 sisters to predict the quality the 3rd season will have...

If asked for a more elaborate, spoiler free review, I'd say: "The nice animation and competent voice acting lifted the pedestrian story up to the ranks of "something watchable if you're tired". ...for the first season. The second season was "one or two episodes of wholesome story", followed by "regret"."

The biggest players in this often make arguments like children would make them: "There are only two ways to do this." and such... This is a show written for an audience with the intellect of children - but featuring lots of bloody violence. ...Like Madness! You heard it here first: "'Blood of Zeus' is 'Madness' with a budget." ;3

Given the most recent US presidential elections, maybe that is what the target audience expects from the beings in the highest available places of power: People who could lose an argument to a tree.

You can tell that I'm angry when I'm dragging politics into this. I feel genuinely upset on behalf of everyone who had to work on this project, having been given "that script" to turn into a professional animation. And I feel even more sorry for everyone who had to give "confident" interviews, because jobs are on the line and they cannot say how they truly feel about this project.

Bullshit like this is what holds the western animation industry back - and I don't like that. We, the audience/consumers, always get the best result if there is as much competition as possible.

(Maybe take a sip of water before you read the next paragraph, because I'm not nearly as angry about the net entry, but with only three entries, I have no gradual "bad-to-good-curve" to work with...)

Iyanu

『(不明)』

I hear "it exists". My spare time scheduling (Read: "Newgrounds") did not leave enough time to look into reviews in earnest. Having watched a few available snippets, they have "good but not perfect" English lip-sync, which I very well appreciate, decent animation, "okay" effects, and pleasant, non-standard voice acting.

The story seems to be aimed at young teens, but from what I could gather, it's probably an "enjoyable-to-okay" watch for people from age 8 to 18. Or "any age", if you are into animation. Which... I mean... You are on Newgrounds and you are reading this. Are you seriously going to tell me that you are "too much of a grown-up" to enjoy animation...? ;3

Batman: Caped Crusader

『バットマン:マントの戦士』

"The second season has been confirmed and will be released in 2025."

 - Wikipedia

"Nani?!"

 - the author

Apparently, this released in August 2024. I had no idea at the time because nobody I pay attention to talked about it. But I thought "I have some space left, this seems worth my time, my audience speaks English..." So here we are. ;)

While I am not a Batman-fan, I watched my fair share of animated Batman series.* Enough to know that even well-meaning adaptations can overpromise and underdeliver.

I'm sure animation and voice acting are "serviceable to stellar", but looking up "Batman" online it bound to get you a million hits for the wrong series and I was in no mood to watch cherry picked trailer material to extrapolate from. I'd say the core audience for Batman watches it for the story. With all due respect: The studio could have used cardboard cutouts, but as long as script and voice acting are good the series still would have been well-received by the actual fans. ;)

I glanced at some reviews and spoke with a few witnesses. Apparently, Batman: Caped Crusader is quite good, actually - but suffers from "not being 'Batman: The Animated Series'" - which it is trying to emulate "but darker and grittier, because it's 'Batman'". Yeah... The same Batman who still refuses to carry a bloody gun or a feasible taser... -.-

To be fair, the focus is (reportedly) almost entirely on the 'detective work' this time and there is not much fighting. So it gets a thumbs up for that move from me!

Personal grievances aside, what I get from professional reviewers (after having read ten thousands[?] of professional reviews in my life) is that they greatly appreciate a "well-made" Batman-series for a change. And that the want to write reviews that criticize less than they should - simply because they would hate for some special needs CEO over at Amazon Prime Video to read their review and interpret a seven-point-something as "Oh it's shit, then? Well, let's can it and animate something with more butts and boobs for our teenage demographic..." in the kind of unreflected knee-jerk reaction that gets you hired/voted into positions of leadership these days.

Sick Sad World...

·

* If you are craving some animated Batman now but have no access to Batman: Caped Crusader and have already watched all of Batman: The Animated Series, check out The New Batman Adventures which was effectively the continuation of Batman: The Animated Series but was neither particularly well marketed or "successful". It's "not as good" and uses a simplified animation style, but will likely leave you "somewhat satisfied". The main issue, as it presents itself to me, is this: Episodes most often felt as if the writer had a solid idea for the beginning and ending - but then left the middle bit to somebody else, who did mostly filler. That the art style was dumbed down severely did not help the series either.

It had it's highlights though.

(The rest of this paragraph contains a mild spoiler. Look forward to episode 9, if you want the identity of the "villain" to be a surprise.)

A personal favorite of mine was episode 9 (Love Is a Croc), featuring a return of one of the particularly tragic Batman-"villains", Mary Louise Dahl (AKA "Baby-Doll"). Whatever I may think about the "filler" for these episodes, the endings are almost always effective - and the episode with Mary Louise Dahl hit especially hard if you know anything about how society treats people with dwarfism.