Day 229 of the challenge! I was pumped for Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle! Unfortunately, it doubles down on everything I disliked from Planet of Monsters.
Liked:
Love the world. Building on the world so eloquently expositioned (making that a word) in Planet of Monsters, City on the Edge of Battle introduces some new interesting toys and concepts into the story whilst adding a nice twist on some classic Godzilla mythology. Interesting ideas, but nothing much was done with them...
The story is full of issues, but it doesn't fail on making Godzilla feel unstoppable. More talked about than anything, City manages to make you feel the seriousness of the threat when Godzilla does finally become relevant to the plot, and he is beautifully rendered in Polygon Picture's ....unique... style.
Didn't like:
So. Much. Talking. City spends the majority of it's time spouting more heavy handed exposition and information than Planet of Monsters (which was already borderline unbearable).
Ugh. I don't mean to seem old fashioned, but I'm of the mentality that anime belongs in the 2D realm of animation. I've tried to wrap my head around it so many times, but I have yet to see any 3D cell shaded anime that makes me think it has benefits over more traditional 2D. Polygon Pictures in particular can create plenty of beautiful environments and robots and such, but always drops the ball on human (or other fleshy) characters. They seem bland, stiff, and almost void of any nuanced expressions.
There was a nice (and predictable) tease of things to come in the final installment of this trilogy, but I can't help but feel they're just going to fall into the same traps of Monsters and City. Hope not, but not holding my breath.