I don't think that's fair. These movies are really for fans only. They cut out almost all of the stuff that endears the supporting cast.
They're great if you already know the story, but they're a poor introduction. I worry that that might continue as they go further in the story, because a lot of people are less familiar with those arcs.
I'd say the opposite. It removes most of the filler and presents the story in a very focused way that doesn't meander around about events that don't really mean anything, so it's easier to keep track of everything and distills many important events down to easily comprehended scenes that often simply infer without over-explaining.
Remember the general who played an important part in Casca's development with an edge of comedic relief, that the anime had as a Looney Tunes-esque re-occuring character who was stupidly annoying and always hatching idiot plots and just generally completely fucking worthless and only served as a way for them to pad out the show's length? The movie had him an important character in Casca's development and that was it. Thank fucking god.
But the rest of the hawks had like 3 lines in the two movies combined. And there's no sense of progress of time, that this is taking place over the course of like 2 or 3 years, and Guts' growth.
I think there's a lot of focus on these visually exciting battle sequences, but at the expense of character development and emotional impact. I mean I already know the story from both the anime and the comics so this isn't as much of an issue for me, but I wouldn't recommend it to someone wanting and introduction.
The battle sequences are another reason I would recommend the movies over the old anime. The series had your typically shitty TV budget so all the fights were toned down and lacked almost the entire impact they had in the manga; when the series ended I was greatly disappointed because of how lackluster the eclipse sequence was (not to mention how spectacularly underwhelming the fight against Zodd was). There were so many great moments that just fell completely flat in animated series form, and have then been done justice in the movies. I'm actually excited for the eclipse scene whereas prior to the release of the first movie I was cautious because of how weak it was the last time they animated it.
Yeah, the old anime had major budget issues and it hurt the action. But they've lost too much of what was between the action for me to call it superior.
Just watched part 3. Crazy as expected. I saw the 18+ version, but I read there isn't much difference.
look here, upon a sig graveyard.
I finally stopped being lazy and got some decent subs for part 3.
So the lead up to the eclipse felt slightly lacking, but I think that was because it was such a direct continuation that the flow got broken up a bit. Once shit started they certainly pulled it off and did not shy away from anything. The 18+ version has more vagina which made me think to myself, "How much vagina could this movie really have?" As it turns out, a lot of vagina. Like, entire dialogue sequences where they do that thing of a random object is supposed to be perfectly placed to be covering genitals, but no one told the camera guy so he filmed in the slightly wrong position and nothing got blocked properly.
But yeah, shit was pretty nuts. I hope that this series in animated form can now finally move on to the good stuff.
I wasn't too crazy about the first two because they pared down this really expansive narrative too far, even compared to the old anime. But the third one cuts out almost nothing, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who found the ending to the anime to be abrupt or unsatisfying.
Bookmarks