Links and Notes - March 21st 2021

Animation tradeoffs and Kipo and the age of the wonderbeasts

Kipo and the age of the wonderbeasts is proof that you can have a sustainable 2d hand animated TV show that doesn't need to sacrifice character variety at the altar of the budgets.

While 2d hand animation has really seen a revival given the state of digital tools, a lot of shows are hobbled by budgets and merchandising demands. Ben 10 for example had such varied characters when it first launched. Thunder cats had fairly complex muscled characters despite being hand animated using paper (I think). The reboots of these shows have bland looking characters. The transformations in Ben 10 have most of the variety removed. The characters from thundercats look similar to each other and you'd be forgiven for thinking you are looking at the same character with a different skin.

I don't think poorly of any of the animators who worked on this though. Budgets and studios dictate many of these features, and honestly, if we leave aside the blandness the technical quality of animation on many of these shows is incredible. Also, the characters having less individual definition means that we get incredibly clean and smooth animation .

Kipo and the age of the wonderbeasts sacrifices some of these qualities. Its characters are all different from each other with plent of details but the quality of these is definitely sacrificed. Even the animation is kept a little less smooth where it's obvious that the animators opted to animate on twos and even threes. The upside of this though is an incredibly rich and varied world with a vibrant storyline. I'd go as far as saying that Kipo is one of the best cartoons out there right now and studios should really consider following in these footsteps.

The US media's role in dehumanising war

Jon Bernhardt tweets:

And the effects

Also, liberal outlets that rag on conservative outlets for racism and xenophobia did more than their fair share of exporting Islamaphobia back when it was cool to do so. It's why I find it impossible to take any of these outlets seriously when they try to come across as the barriers between evil.

Fuck them. Their words from across the ocean taught people that it was ok to call me "Muslim terrorist" as a joke. Networks of truth my ass.

Am I angry about this? Always.

Gardening as therapy

The juxtaposition of the title and the last line from the previous section is unintentional. But it works. I just came back in from a hard session of gardening. With all the rains in the nights, the garden has grown unruly. A session of mowing the lawn (we have a manual push lawnmower) and being on my knees using the shears to cut the bits and bobs in the corner is so therapeutic. I could absolutely do it the whole day. There is something very peaceful in methodically working through patches of grass and then looking out at it when done.

On a separate note, I really wish I had a more efficient way of cutting grass in corners where the lawn mower won't fit. While I love working through it with a pair of shears peacefully, the reality is that I don't always have that much time. Any suggestions are welcome.

Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia

Read this story yesterday. Warning, not for the squeamish. The headline is not just not clickbait, it's accurate. Some quotes that capture what madenss is happening in the rural areas.

“We don’t want to go inside in the morning sometimes. It stinks, they will die and it’s impossible to find all the bodies … Some nights we are catching over 400 or 500,” he says.

That's a quote from a supermarket worker.

But the numbers don't fully capture the scale of this. I watched a few videos of people shining torches in the night; at first I thought I was watching cockroaches swarming instead of hundreds and hundreds of mice everywhere.

Absolutely mental. And terrifying. My heart goes out to the people affected by this.

The legends road safety cricket tournament cup belongs to...

India most likely. Sri Lanka seemed to have a great start. After we lost Dilshan and then Jayasuriya, we just can't seem to muster enough batting strength to make those big plays. Although as I type this Jayasinghe plays a great six. 100 for 4 in the middle of the 13th over. Roughly the same as where India was at this point. Unlike India though we don't have a deep batting line, a term my wife introduced me to, to create a big partnership.

My hero academia takes a hell of a turn

Won't spoil anything but I gotta say, the manga took a hell of a turn today. A very unexpected character development in one of the main protagonists. I can't help but wonder if we are about to hit a time skip of sorts.

I'm opening up for comments from now on. If you have thoughts on any section feel free to share it with me at [email protected]

Previous links and notes (March 2oth)

Next links and notes (March 22nd)

Posted on March 21 2021 by Adnan Issadeen