Top Gun

I know almost nothing about the series other than its name but that looks pretty damn impressive all things considered.

No one: Absolutely no one: Japan: "You know what really needs a sequel?"

No one watched old CN promos? "My ability to talk to fish is of no use to us here!"

I've spent so long resigned to the fact that we probably wouldn't get any more Heroboys that it's kind of surreal knowing it'll be on in a few hours.

The original series is a fantastic coming-of-age romance story that just so happens to feature kickass sky-surfing robots. Fortunately it was complete as-is and no one ever had the asinine idea to tarnish its legacy with increasingly-awful spinoffs and "sequels" and lord knows what else.

I don't think I've so much as heard of half of these shows. And to think there was a time in college when I basically had [as] on nonstop.

Not that it'd ever happen, but if they could come up with some way to show a best-of marathon of Batman: TAS, I'd lose my shit.

*laughs in watching a single new OP episode per week for the past...oh, almost 15 years*

The Empire State Building's Twitter account reposted it though:

"This is fine."

The best part about playing the Arkham games was listening to Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill play off each other again. It was like being transported back to my childhood.

This one fucking hurts. 😢

Hey, Klein was best girl.

Movies often have different production committees than the series proper. They may have higher licensing fees placed on them by the license-holders, especially if the movie is a huge hit in Japan, or there may be other sorts of bullshit stipulations that we aren't privy to. Maybe one of the companies in the production pie is an out-of-touch curmudgeon who isn't interested in offering TV rights for a film in the first place. As to why it was made as a movie, probably because the arc it adapts is about the right length for one, and (if I'm remembering correctly) at the time the manga hadn't yet advanced to the point where they could get away with another full-fledged season. Plus it had a huge setpiece fight that really benefited from a movie budget.

Recutting anime movies into parts of TV seasons usually makes for terrible television, though. I'm not the biggest Demon Slayer fan, but I've heard that the TV version of Mugen Train stretches the hell out of everything to the point where it just kills the flow. Which makes sense, because a movie isn't meant to be artificially chopped up into 20-minute blocks. Dawn of the Deep Soul worked fantastically as a movie, and I'd never want to see that done to it. It's not the movie's fault that TV licensing is a bitch.

Things are looking up!

I just rewatched the movie last night. ...I need a hug now.

Well yeah, that much is a given. There's no need to drag a really good other movie down to make that point though.

Not only that, but gee, why would a movie released in March of 2021 underperform at the box office? Gee, can't imagine. It was the third-most-streamed movie of 2021 and has a 94% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Raya kicked ass.

The Korean animation studio DR Movie animated that segment. They've done in-between animation and background work for literally hundreds of anime series over many years, including Death Note.

That was pretty fun, if played rather straight. I really liked how they went for the full-on DRAMATIC WRITING SCENE. Honestly though, I thought the last segment of the episode was straight-up fantastic. That was probably the first new Simpsons episode I've watched in almost 15 years, and it was a lot more enjoyable than I expected.

Except Toonami is almost certainly dealing directly with Toei for this current run, as it seemingly is for TMS with Lupin. I think that's the real way the block maintains any sort of viability at this point: cultivate those long relationships with Japanese production companies that you've established, and take advantage of the fact that many of them still see prestige value in having their properties air on American television. This felt like kind of a mixed bag of news, even if a lot of it was presumably outside of the block crew's control. I'm genuinely excited for MiA season 2, but that's tempered by them not being able to show the movie. I've seen it before and have easy access to it for a quick rewatch, but it sucks for those who haven't seen it yet. I highly encourage everyone to take a look at it beforehand if you can, since it will directly set up where the trio are to start this season. Leading off the block with a season 5 MHA rerun seemed like a profoundly stupid move, but the fact that they're starting right at the end of the season made my raise my eyebrows quite a bit. Hopefully they can pull an end-around on Monopolyroll and get access to season 6 by some miracle. Also not a fan of dropping down to a single OP episode per week, as that really kills the pacing, and it's hard enough to fill up the block as-is right now.

Even having my own bathroom I always lower the lid before flushing because it's gross otherwise.