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Is it too early to call Shenmue the best of the Crunchyroll originals?


Jman

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Honest question since Shenmue is surprisingly good only two episodes in, stringing together a lot of fetch quests and detective work into a coherent narrative, and the competition is well, dreck.

High Guardian Spice - A meme for how terrible it is.

Onyx Equinox - Proving Americans do not care about Mesoamerica.

God of High School - Rushed, incoherent mess.

Ex-ARM - Some of the worst CG animation this side of Reboot Season 1.

Blade Runner Black Lotus - Quickly eclipsed by Arcane and left to be forgotten.

Tower of God - Ok, that one wasn’t so bad.

Is it a fair assessment?

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I like how the OP doesn't even mention Fena, which might be the most kuso original of them all.

Really, I think the biggest problem CR's originals have is that they're so scattershot. We've got western animation, adapdations of Korean comics, and then actual anime. And they're all wildly different in tone and animation styles. Several years after HGS was announced, this company still doesn't know what they want. It's especially damning if you compare this track record to the anime CR is merely on the production committees for. Remember back when they pumped some money into Kemono Friends and it became a big hit? Now they have ODDTAXI, which is cut from similar cloth (as in, funny animal people) and is just as successful. Makes you wish things could always be this simple.

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If the shows CR was on production committees for were added to the list, ODDTAXI and The Rising of the Shield Hero alone would label them successes.  Sadly that is not the case. 

The disconnect of what CR originals wants to be is a huge issue.  At least Shenmue has a solid foundation in its original material

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Having only watched Fena and Black Lotus at this point, far too early for me.

Quite frankly, I've never played the game that this is supposedly based on but unfortunately feel like I know exactly which would be 'cut scenes' including the dialogue taken directly from a game. As such, it pulls me out of the experience and leaves me feeling like I'd be better off watching it with Crow and Tom Servo. 

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7 minutes ago, MasqueradeOverture said:

Don't call a spade an ace until the fat lady cums.

Then find higher ground because holy shit

I think this is more a damning indictment of just how terrible the entire CR originals lineup has been.  Also that is one stretched metaphor.

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  • 2 months later...
On 2/15/2022 at 10:11 PM, Jman said:

I think this is more a damning indictment of just how terrible the entire CR originals lineup has been.  Also that is one stretched metaphor.

That's weird because I don't really consider Fena and BRBL "bad" shows.

Fena started off with an excellent premise that got really bizarre and unsubtle in its last episode. Even so, it was included on many "best of" lists for 2021, along with fellow Toonami shows like Dr. Stone: Stone Wars. And BRBL hasn't had quite the same accolades, and say what you want about the Playstation 3-quality CGI animation, but really the only fault I can find with the writing is one character's seemingly pointless sacrifice. Nevertheless, it now has a comic, so at least Elle's story continues in some form!

Shenmue dragged with the Wude arc in the middle, if you ask me, but as it got through the Yellow Heads and to the final confrontation with Lan Di it has certainly picked up steam.

Edited by OwlChemist81
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In my eyes, Fena started out nicely but turned into a joke by the end. Black Lotus had lower peaks, but was at least good the whole way through, and I probably would've liked it more had I been familiar with the Blade Runner mythos. But yeah, I don't think it's controversial at all to say that Shenmue has been the best of the CR originals. Ideally, it'll get a second season announced at the end of the finale on Saturday, meaning it'll outlive the brand it was originally made for.

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I doubt we'll hear anything Saturday, but in terms of the likelihood of any of the Toonami/CR originals getting a second Season, the order is definitely:

1. Shenmue

2. Black Lotus

3. Fena

However, Shenmue is not the last Toonami/CR original! That would in fact be Uzumaki, coming in October!

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