[Anime] Godzilla Singular Point - Netflix [US] June 24

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**Manchu**

The last foray of Godzilla into anime was a disaster. This time, let’s hope there is more action and less interminable pseudo-philosophical monologuing.

But this is anime we’re talking about here ...

Some of the clips on YT are looking cool and I have seen positive reviews so here’s hoping!

And handy episode guide:

Spoiler:

Source:

Spoiler:

**Albertorius**

I liked it. It is pretty weird in many instances, but it has quite interesting questions and answers, I thought.

Also, Jet Jaguar.

**Overread**

I've casually noticed an uptake in monologing in anime. I think its simply because its cheap to fill time with at a time when animation is increasingly expensive.

When you can fill 5 mins of a character doing a monologue and perhaps only have to animate their mouth moving (or at all). You just need one high resolution bit of art to scroll slowly past (or a couple) and you've got yourself 3-4 mins of cheap production.

**Manchu**

A slow pan across a still image with a navel-gazing voiceover is standard anime cost control. The whole medium is built around this conceit.

The previous Godzilla OVAs, however, failed to balance it against anything at all interesting.

**Lance845**

Overread wrote:
I've casually noticed an uptake in monologing in anime. I think its simply because its cheap to fill time with at a time when animation is increasingly expensive.

When you can fill 5 mins of a character doing a monologue and perhaps only have to animate their mouth moving (or at all). You just need one high resolution bit of art to scroll slowly past (or a couple) and you've got yourself 3-4 mins of cheap production.

Anime has been monologing for like... 30 years. It's basically a staple of the cultures story telling. Tell, don't show.

Anyway, the last Anime Godzilla started off bad and got progressively, massively, worse. I expect the same here.

**AduroT**

Singular Point is strictly average imho. Less philosophical monologuing and more hypothetical pseudo science mumbo jumbo monologuing. You get some neat monster designs, but Godzilla himself is like a background character and the anime is not at all about Godzilla so much as the weird made up pseudo science junk that spawns him and the other monsters. And then the ending is just kind of a weird dues ex.

**Ahtman**

You had me at Jet Jaguar.

**LordofHats**

Lance845 wrote:
Overread wrote:
I've casually noticed an uptake in monologing in anime. I think its simply because its cheap to fill time with at a time when animation is increasingly expensive.

When you can fill 5 mins of a character doing a monologue and perhaps only have to animate their mouth moving (or at all). You just need one high resolution bit of art to scroll slowly past (or a couple) and you've got yourself 3-4 mins of cheap production.

Anime has been monologing for like... 30 years. It's basically a staple of the cultures story telling. Tell, don't show.

Both are honestly valid, but doing them in the wrong order and frequency feths the souffle (I'm gonna be bold and say this is a piece of classic advice that isn't as valid as it appears). Honestly though, I'd peg the issue more as a complexity addiction. Anime as a genre comes in two forms; the 'what you see is what you get' and the 'what the feth did I just watch.' Naruto and the like falls in the former. It's pretty straightforward, focused on action or drama. The later? Scenery chewing exposition as an early introduction into the 'what the feth' you're watching is a standard form, and such shows tend to go hardcore into convolusion as an integral plot element. Such things are hard to show in the first place, so exposition becomes necessary.

It is of course good for the budget. I think it's an element though thats been incorporated as part of the medium so it's not just about the budget. And frankly, the series clearly spent most of its money on animation quality, so I'm not sure the animation budget is what they were worried about.

This show is definitely on the 'what the feth is this' side which is both bizarre for something with Godzilla involved and refreshing in a weird way. The animations pretty slick. Energetic and colorful in a really nice way. Not so sure about some of the monster design choices...Why does Rodan look so derpy? Not sure. It really banks in the first couple episodes with weirdness and is decently hooky but these kinds of shows tend to fall apart at the end. You know how Lost ended and nothing really got tied up and you felt like your time was wasted? That's what the vibe I'm getting from this show (and most like it honestly).

**Albertorius**

I mean, you're not wrong, but it's entertaining ^^

**hotsauceman1**

Monologuing and talking during a fight are literally there to save animation money.

**Overread**

And running with your hands held out behind you whilst not wearing a cape

**Manchu**

I would guess there is probably a name for the style in which yakuza-type tattoos are drawn/colored but whatever that style is, that is what the monster design in Singular Point reminds me of. Maybe this is related to the same popular style of woodblock printing? Interestingly, the design of the monsters pose quite a contrast to the design of the characters, which is in a completely different visual style.

**LordofHats**

Monologuing and talking during a fight are literally there to save animation money.

Sometimes. Sometimes it's also just something you have to do, especially in battle series' where characters have convoluted powers that need to be explained to make any sense. In any case, I'm saying this isn't one of those shows. The series isn't trying to save money using stills so much as purposefully chewing the scenery and expositing during transitions. There's this cel-shading effect here and it does not look cheap. They were not skimping money for the animation budget on this show.

The trailer was probably more the result of that scene being prepped for the trailer in a rush.

Manchu wrote:
I would guess there is probably a name for the style in which yakuza-type tattoos are drawn/colored but whatever that style is, that is what the monster design in Singular Point reminds me of. Maybe this is related to the same popular style of woodblock printing? Interestingly, the design of the monsters pose quite a contrast to the design of the characters, which is in a completely different visual style.

Definitely woodblock in terms of colors. The characters remind me of the last generation of Persona games in terms of style but that might just be the yakuza-graffitti sort of visual work (I don't know if it's actually called that, that's just what I call it in my head because the line work looks like graffitti to me and it uses lots of vibrant colors and yakuza style imagery, which is derived from old woodblock styles).

Honestly though, the story is blarg. In a way it's actually like a really long Showa era Godzilla film. I would have thought I'd like that, but it feels dragged out in the length of a series, especially early on. Things get a bit better when Godzilla finally shows up, but by then I think I was pretty tuned out and just watching for the visual work that went into the show.

**AegisGrimm**

I may be an Anime neophyte, but after reading the plot synopsis for the episodes, calling a device the "Orthogonal Diagonalizer" is possibly one of the most anime things I have ever heard, considering what both those things "mean".

**BobtheInquisitor**

How does that even work? Feels like someone trying to find the cross-dot product.

**AduroT**

Well it was an impossible machine doing impossible things, so having an impossible name seems fairly appropriate.

**Dreadwinter**

I sat through the entire series on my day off and I really wish I hadn't.

**epronovost**

I watched it and to me it feels like someone really liked Shin Godzilla and copied some key concepts like Godzilla mutating in three different stages and some key visuals like the atomic breath slicing through buildings in Tokyo and Godzilla walking in a burning Tokyo.

It also decided for some reason to keep their human busy by making technobabble for episodes length all of which was unbearable. Technobabble gets a pass in Star Trek because its rather short and serves only to present a problem or a solution. In this series it seems to be to explain the plot which is obnoxious at best.

The animation and the characters are less obnoxious than those of the Godzilla series in three part, but they are not great either. All in all I would give this take a rating of 5/10. It's not completely boring or offensively stupid, but its mediocre at best.

**AegisGrimm**

I'm into the beginning of Episode three, and ye gods, there's A LOT of talking.

**Manchu**

Where are you guys watching it?

**AduroT**

9Anime.to is where I tend to go for my streaming needs.

**Dreadwinter**

It's on Netflix here.

**Manchu**

Well dang, thanks for pointing that out! The source I relied on has since been corrected — the premier was JUNE 24! I have corrected the thread title.

**Nevelon**

Finished it last night.

Overall not the best. I like the animation style a LOT more then the recent Netflix Godzilla animated things. That’s a pretty low bar though. Seen better, seen worse. Not going to give it art points, but not ding it for looks either

Plot was OK. Basic “crisis happening, how do we solve it” thing.

Liked the nod to the original oxygen destroyer.

None of the characters really grabbed me. A huge part of Godzilla flicks is watching the human drama unfold as the unstoppable monster wreaks havoc. They just ran around and techno-babbled. And when you add layers of timey-whimy on top of the babble, it just turns into a soggy mess.

If you are a Godzilla fan, and have time to burn, why not? If you are on the fence about seeing it, don’t feel bad if you skip.

**Albertorius**

Manchu wrote:
I would guess there is probably a name for the style in which yakuza-type tattoos are drawn/colored but whatever that style is, that is what the monster design in Singular Point reminds me of. Maybe this is related to the same popular style of woodblock printing? Interestingly, the design of the monsters pose quite a contrast to the design of the characters, which is in a completely different visual style.

I mean, we're talking about Japan, there obviously is: wabori, tebori if you actually do it with traditional bamboo needles

That said, yes, it feels ukiyo-e ish, doesn't it.

**Albertorius**

Question for the people talking about the techno babble: Did you watch the sub or the dub?

I'm asking because I saw the sub and for the most part it didn't really feel like technobabble to me, and I actually managed to follow much of the theorizing about impossible particles and the like, but two people have already told me that the dub mangles it very badly in an attempt to keep the translation lip synched...

**AduroT**

I watched the sub and I still felt it was excessively technobabble-y.

**Albertorius**

AduroT wrote:
I watched the sub and I still felt it was excessively technobabble-y.

I mean, it is really verbose, that's for sure, but I wouldn't really call it technobabble, except in the sense of "going all out theorizing stuff". The only actual technobabble I remember was the Orthogonal Diagonalizer, the term "Singular Point" and the... Whatever was called the stuff that cristalized the red dust. The rest was just trying to explain how impossible stuff acgually happened to work.

Or maybe I think of diferent stuff when I say "technobabble". I tend to mean "made up words and things that then I try to pass as science without examination or explanation", which is how many Star Trek episodes were resolved.

**Nevelon**

I watched the sub.

The babble was mostly internally consistent. You could kinda put together what they were saying into something coherent. I thought it was interesting that they were using pages of doodles rather then mathematical equations. That just reinforced the point that it was basically handwavium.

So while not pure technobabbe, where they just pull terms out of thin air and don’t bother putting any foundation under them, it felt pretty close.

**Albertorius**

Nevelon wrote:
I watched the sub.

The babble was mostly internally consistent. You could kinda put together what they were saying into something coherent. I thought it was interesting that they were using pages of doodles rather then mathematical equations. That just reinforced the point that it was basically handwavium.

So while not pure technobabbe, where they just pull terms out of thin air and don’t bother putting any foundation under them, it felt pretty close.

Ah, gotcha. I mostly was able to follow what they were saying, but I can certainly see that not being the case for everyone. It was just that I was getting sort of a dissonance by the use of the term.

And of course, the later episodes go to the deep end of the pool. I certainly enjoyed the first half of the series more than the second half, and actually liked all the theorizing at least up to that point, where they were trying to discover how in all hell were all this impossible creatures suddenly appearing, and why they were dying right after. I mostly had fun with the whole series, but IMHO the first half is stronger.