Category: January

My Ranking Of The Disney Animated Canon Part 1

Published January 31, 2022

I recently rewatched the vast majority of the Disney Animated Canon, the animated movies developed by Walt Disney Animation Studios, with a few other people and had a fantastic time discussing the history of Disney, the place of each film within it and my thoughts on each movie. Having finally finished with Frozen II, I don’t have Raya and the Last Dragon or Encanto on Blu-Ray, I thought it might be interesting to do a personal ranking of each movie within the Disney Animated Canon. Understandably, discussing 58 films is quite a daunting task so I decided, to shorten the overall length of this article, I’m going to purely discuss my own thoughts on each movie, i.e., I’m not going to discuss their premises. With that being said, let’s start with my ranking from worst to best.

58. Chicken Little

As far as I’m concerned, Chicken Little is the worst film that Walt Disney Animation Studios has ever produced. The animation and character designs are very unappealing and the story itself is surprisingly mean-spirited and unpleasant. I’ve only ever seen this film once and, as you can imagine, I have no desire to see it again.

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My Thoughts On The Astonishing Microsoft Purchase Of Activision-Blizzard

Published January 27, 2022

On the 18th of January, I was finishing up some work just before I had my lunch and I saw an article pop up on Twitter. It was from PC Gamer and the headline was “Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion“. I remember simply being stunned. I couldn’t process it as my first thought was to check if it was April 1st. Upon a little further research, it became evident that this wasn’t a joke or a prank, this was really happening. Given this, I thought it worth sharing my thoughts on the astonishing Microsoft purchase of Activision-Blizzard.

I should first explain why I was so surprised. A week prior to this news, I saw the information that Take-Two Interactive was acquiring Zynga in, at the time, the largest video game purchase in history at $12.7 billion. Given that this record had been set recently at a comparatively mere $12.7 billion, I couldn’t believe how quickly it was beaten by nearly five and a half times the price.

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Less Popular But Great Manga Recommendations

Published January 24, 2022

As manga has continued to grow in popularity, it seems like it’s easier than ever to get your hands on whatever type of manga you want. However, it’s easy to be swept up in the most popular releases, leaving some manga that are truly brilliant less successful. Knowing this, I thought it would be helpful to list some great manga series that I would consider to be less popular, perhaps even obscure, as recommendations.

The first manga series that I would like to recommend is not only one of my favourite romance manga of all time but also one of the best manga that I’ve ever read, “Girl Friends”. Written by Milk Morinaga and running from 2006 to 2010, the story follows a shy girl called Mariko Kumakura who ends up becoming friends with the outgoing Akiko Oohashi. As their friendship continues to build, Mariko realises that her feelings for Akiko are more than something friends would feel. The story is surprisingly well-written, examining the confusion that these two girls feel as their relationship develops and incorporating a brilliant cast of characters that both support and trouble our protagonists. Regardless of your thoughts on yuri manga, I fully encourage you to check out Girl Friends.

The cover of the manga series Girl Friends.

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Why Are So Many Anime Series Shorter These Days?

Published January 20, 2022

I was watching a YouTube video recently where a guy expressed an interest in Attack on Titan but stated that he was afraid to start the anime because “there’s like a million episodes, I don’t know where to start”. The others explained to him that there were only about twenty episodes (this video was back in 2016 and they were referring to the 25 episodes that had aired before then). I was quite amused by this as I’ve seen plenty of people also make the assumption that all anime are long-running series. This viewpoint, while certainly never true, did seem closer to reality back when I first got into anime but it feels like a lot of series these days are much shorter.

Over the years, we’ve seen anime steadily go from producing multiple cours in the past down to most modern anime series consisting of only a single cour. Additionally, long-running anime has become increasingly uncommon with manga such as My Hero Academia, which in my opinion seemed tailor-made to be a long-running anime, instead being adapted into a one cour first season with several two cour seasons following.

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Aardman Animations: Why I Feel They’ve Wasted Their Potential

Published January 17, 2022

I’ve been covering many animation studios and animation legends recently and there has been a particular studio that I’ve been holding off discussing, Aardman. The reason that I’ve held off on discussing Aardman Animations is because I have a weird relationship with their works in that I hold many of their titles in high esteem while I also feel that they’ve wasted their potential. However, I feel that it’s high time that I take a look at the company, their works and my thoughts.

In case you’re unfamiliar with Aardman Animations, they are a UK based animation company that are famous for using stop-motion. They were originally founded in 1972 and have since developed many notable animated works such as Morph, Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run etc. It’s also worth noting that Chicken Run, their first theatrical movie, retains the record for being the highest-grossing stop-motion animated film in history.

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Graphics: Easily The Most Overrated Aspect Of Video Games

Published January 13, 2022

As you might expect from a fan of FromSoftware and of the Dark Souls series, I am really looking forward to the upcoming Elden Ring and have been keeping my eye on any news articles that mention the game. An article caught my eye recently where Hidetaka Miyazaki stated that his graphics team were feeling pressure due to the recent release of the Demon’s Souls remake. However, the statement that I really took away from the article was where he said “Graphical fidelity is not something we put as the top priority”. This sentence felt like a breath of fresh air in a games industry obsessed with graphics and made me think about the fact that, in my opinion, this aspect is easily the most overrated when it comes to video games.

Now don’t get me wrong. I really do love to see games with beautiful graphics. However, I’ve come to realise that games with a non-realistic art-style are generally more appealing to me and hold up better over time. Additionally, a problem that many AAA game developers and publishers are struggling with are the rising costs of developing video games. Video game budgets, in the AAA gaming industry, have skyrocketed and this is due to a combination of higher graphic fidelity along with an increase in marketing costs.

Hidetaka Miyazaki’s view on graphics is very different to many other AAA developers.

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The Eisner Awards And Its History With Manga

Published January 10, 2022

I was recently perusing some manga news when I noticed an article which mentioned that Junji Ito had won two Eisner Awards at the 2021 Eisner Awards. If you tend to read news websites covering the topics of anime and manga, it’s quite likely that you’ve noticed the occasional news that a manga has received an Eisner Award and you might be wondering what the significance of this particular award is. Therefore, I thought I’d take a look at the Eisner Awards and its history with manga.

Let’s start by discussing the Eisner Awards themselves. The Eisner Awards were established in 1988 to celebrate American comic books and graphic novels and were named after legendary comic artist/writer Will Eisner. These awards are presented each year at San Diego Comic-Con and currently span an impressive 32 categories.

The two Junji Ito manga that won awards at the 2021 Eisner Awards.

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Why Anime Visuals Are Upgraded For Their Home Video Releases

Published January 6, 2022

While it’s never happened to me personally, due to the fact that I watch the vast majority of my anime for the first time on physical media, I’ve met people who’ve noticed that the visuals of an anime that they’ve watched has been changed on DVD/Blu-ray. While not exclusive to the world of anime, Star Wars is a particularly infamous Western example, the idea of making further changes to a show/movie for their home video release is quite heavily associated with anime. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some anime that have had their visuals upgraded for their home video releases and why companies choose to do this.

Understandably, the history of this practise is relatively brief compared to the medium itself. The introduction of home video in the 1980s allowed the development of OVAs, anime developed specifically for home video, but the idea of making further changes to the show between the TV airing and the home video release didn’t arise until later on. Since the beginning of the 2000s, it has become surprisingly commonplace for anime series to air in underdeveloped states with the home video release that comes out afterwards looking more refined and complete.

A scene from Puella Magi Madoka Magica as it appeared on TV.

A scene from Puella Magi Madoka Magica as it appeared on DVD/Blu-ray.

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The Devastating Impact Of The Dark Age Of Animation

Published January 3, 2022

I would hope that, by this point, readers are well aware of my passion for the medium of animation. While I do cover the topic of anime quite extensively, I’ve also spoken about my admiration for Western animation and my frustration at how many people look down on animation as being inferior to live-action. However, this viewpoint that animation is inferior to live-action did not simply come out of a void. Instead, this damage to the legitimacy of animation as a storytelling medium developed over the course of the Dark Age of Animation whose devastating impact continues to be felt today.

Prior to the advent of the Dark Age of Animation, animation was in a golden age with numerous popular theatrical shorts such as Merrie Melodies, Looney Tunes, Disney, Betty Boop etc. earning critical praise and delighting audiences of all ages. Additionally, Disney were developing theatrical feature films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Peter Pan and more that proved to be financially and critically successful. However, the rise of television presented a new threat to the film industry and the box office failure of Sleeping Beauty, which was released in 1959, along with the death of the theatrical animated short heralded the Dark Age of Animation.

I view the box office failure of Sleeping Beauty as the beginning of the Dark Age of Animation.

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