Georgeous, unsettling, alien, and familiar all at once. Simultaneously some of the strongest CGI and mechanical design* of the decade. I wish I could hold onto hoping that our +$200,000,000-budget blockbusters will look like this someday.
Narratively, this entry lacks the unexpectedly-quiet sadness of its predecessor but has a better sense of continuity and cohesion; it's great to see Chadeisson and his team grow and I can't wait to see what they do next.
*With the possible exception of the…
This evening, I somehow had a sudden flashback of watching this (triggered by the sight of some dirt) and have spent entire time since trying to figure out if I hallucinated it or not. "Weird ants with soul orbs (on their abdomens...?) and a two-headed nightmare snake, 1980s-90s animation style" were the only memories I had to go off of. After frantically searching the web and this very website, I despaired, The Ant-Bully and Antz drowning out all results.
Finally,…
Combining Dr. Seuss-esque visuals with a bizarre, existential cyberpunk-nightmare universe, Kaiba fits the bill of "surrealism" on a level few other series can rival. There is nothing like it; there never will be. While it lacks Yuasa's signature grotesqueness in style, an unsettling edge remains under the cartoonish aesthetic, reminiscent more of French animation than Japanese. It's one of the strangest and bleakest soft sci-fi universes out there; much of the show is dedicated simply to traveling through its beautiful…
