Man, I can't find it now, but there was a pull quote from one critic along the lines of, "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is an awful film, but awful in a way that Marvel movies rarely are."

And I was like, "DAAAAAAAAAAAAMN!!!"

Bill Murray was in it, but I couldn't tell you why. He's a fucking nothing character who has about 5 minutes of screen time, and then is implied to have died? I think? Just worthless.

Quantumania is kind of fucking bad, y'all. Like, I don't even know what the idea was behind this one. Oof. Big fucking oof.

Even worse than Love & Thunder, I think. That one at least had some highs to contrast its many lows.  This new Ant-Man is all lows, all the time.

I'm honestly wondering if its box office will end up being less than Black Adam's, which would be a special kind of dire.

Right? Like the armorer was all out of breastplates that day.

But seriously, I had heard a little bit about this, didn't really think much of it. Figured he'd get a slap on the wrist for a being an awkward weirdo with a woman he had been seeing, but supposedly there's a lot more to it than that.

https://kotaku.com/rick-morty-season-7-voice-justin-roiland-domestic-abuse-1850026753

Apparently he goes on the prowl for teenage girls on social media and shit? Big yikes.

I like the intro/outro songs + visuals. Both segments of the 4th episode were pretty good.

I have no real history with Junji Ito, so I always just assumed everything he did was meant to be bone-chilling/upsetting, but there's very clearly some inherent goofiness in some of these stories. Like, it's not unintentional. But then other times scenes are so cheaply animated/scored that what's meant to be disturbing just ends up being underwhelming/lame.

I'm still watching it, so I guess I can't say it's a complete waste.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is SUPER good. Never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it with me own two eyeballs.

First episode of Hikari no Ou was solid. It's a got a good look to it. Nice character designs, cool premise. Not sure how I overlooked it when I went digging through all the winter trailers.

That reminds me, Ooyukiumi no Kaina has a neat premise marred by absolutely rancid CG. Ugh. Putrid.

Watched The Menu. Wonderful film. Made me feel sick. Just lovely.

No, really. It's quite good. Ralph Fiennes comes close to doing the Voldemort laugh a couple times.

Anya Taylor-Joy is so skinny. I hope she ate that whole cheeseburger for real. Fries, too.

I shouldn't have typed that. She's a beautiful person, and very talented. She was great in this, too.

The CG in Trigun didn't bother me. I thought it was pretty good.

The plot, on the other hand, felt a little limp. It was probably smart to get Vash's origin out of the way up front, but the conflict of the rest of the episode was so manufactured. Like, I get that they want Vash to have his moment to shine, but the setup was complete nonsense.

I'm still hopeful that it'll improve, though.

If you'd rather see some poorly implemented CG in anime, look no further than NieR. Blech.

Buddy Daddies seems okay? Same production team as Akiba Maid Sensou from last cour. COUR. I hate the term. Like, I get it. I get why you would want to differentiate from "season"... but still.

Anyway, the dude characters seem alright, and the little girl character is seemingly just a little girl. As in, she speaks and behaves like a child would.

I tried one a couple COURS back about a yakuza raising a little girl, and the little girl was totally out of whack. It's almost like she was depressed and neurotic all the time, and while I acknowledge that small children can experience mental health issues, it really doesn't manifest the same way as it would in a teenager or an adult like the way it was depicted here.

Also, the way her head/hair/face were drawn was like... put it like this, you could have taken her head and dropped it onto the neck of any of the women characters and it wouldn't look out of place. Like, "Oh, I have to draw a kid now, guess I'll just draw a lady face like I usually do and put it on this tiny body."

No.

Barbara Walters is dead.

And why is it almost ALWAYS a cheap medieval fantasy setting? Bonus points if it's actually a videogame!

Barf.

I don't really know Gerwig, either. Looked her up. She's done some acting, but now she mostly seems to be about writing/directing lady-centric stuff. So this Barbie will probably have some strong depictions of female empowerment, etc. at its core.

And I'm not saying that to be condescending or cynical or whatever, I just believe that's what this movie is going to be about.

Because like I said, if you're making a Barbie movie NOW, it probably ain't to sell toys. Although the toys will undoubtedly see a boost in sales, I'm sure.

Just to be clear, I'm not really that bent out of shape about it, I just felt like I owed you an unhinged film critique.

Strange World is crap, though.

YMS talked about Avatar, maybe you've already seen it:

Fair. I won't bully you about it. I just need to be able to go YES/NO based on the first episode, and Urusei Yatsura was an easy fail for me. Maybe I'm missing out on something that I would actually end up enjoying? But I can't let myself fall down that hole.

There's a lot starting in January. Seems like we're finally truly on the other side of the COVID anime draught. But man, so much of it looks like low-effort dreck. I know I always say the upcoming season's batch looks terrible, and I'm usually right. So much isekai. Holy fuck, when will it end?

I have very few picks, and some of it is even stuff I'd typically ignore based on animation quality alone, but the premise grabs me for one reason or another.


This seems to be sister turns brother into girl, hijinks ensue? Bonus points for having an art style that doesn't look interchangeable with 90% of everything else debuting in the same timeframe.


I always liked the idea of Trigun more than the actual execution of Trigun. This looks like a straight reboot, and it's done by one of the only studios that seems to have a competent grasp on how to do anime in 3D. They also did Land of the Lustrous and Beastars, for reference.


I feel like they've been teasing this one forever. Don't know that I'm sold on the animation, it resembles the manga, but there's just something slightly off about it that's bugging me.


This one in particular, the character designs/animation style is generic AF. But the whole tomboy has romantic feelings for her longtime guy pal, and dude is all, "Huh? You're my bro, bro!" appeals to me. I have no idea why. I can see myself potentially dumping this one after the first five minutes, if I'm being honest.

Other than that, Nagatoro, Tokyo Revengers, and Vinland are all coming back. I should probably get around to watching the first series of those...