Lissea's Constant Complaints

I mean Fire Bringer by David Clement-Davies, not to be confused with the Firebringer Trilogy, which I will get round to reading later this year. When I first started reading I couldn’t understand it, and to be honest, I was a bit worried too. If this genius book had been forgotten and not adapted, what chance did my own stuff have? But that was before I got to the Middle. Once I passed this point, I began to see problems emerging, and I also started to notice issues that had been there all along but I had brushed aside because it seemed like one percent problem to ninety nine percent brilliant.  Bear in mind this is very subjective, and I could be completely wrong about some if not all these things. I will also be bringing up Watership Down as a comparison quite a bit.  First, this should be labelled as a Young Adult or Adult book. This isn’t a problem in itself, but it does have a bearing on things, so I feel I should bring it up first. Also, if I, an adult reader are having ...

Eden is definitely nothing to write home about. It wasn’t bad, and there were good things in it, but it solidified something as a problem that hadn’t bothered me on previous occasions I encountered it.  A lot is lost when you chose CGI over hand drawn animation (or an equivalent, such as tablet drawn) but when you do this to anime the gap between the two is much, much wider.  Eden makes you feel nothing and it is almost one hundred percent down to the animation, or lack of it a lot of the time. It is particularly bad when it comes to character expression, which there is a severe lack of in the protagonist. I’ve seen way better in MMD dance videos. Heck even most storyboards put together for testing look more expressive and dynamic. And don’t get me started on the crying cycle. Not only is it the most unconvincing animation ever (and so obvious a layer on top of a model) but it's painfully obvious it is cycling over and over again, with the exact same time gap between.  Ok...

Many people have that one Christmas song they hate. Some have more than one! For a lot of people it seems to be Last Christmas, while others seem unable to stand A Wonderful Christmastime for some reason. For me it’s I’m Gonna Lasso Santa Claus. The lyrics are stupid in a nonsense and irrelevant sort of way, and the voice is extremely irritating.  But the main reason I’ve come to dislike this song so much is something completely different. The message and sentiment are absolutely terrible. So here’s this do-gooder kid who thinks it would be clever to commit the criminal acts of kidnap and stealing, to give deprived kids some presents. But if that’s not bad enough, think of the implications. He’s going to deprive all the kids of the world who are expecting presents – and will be very upset at not getting any –  to give them to a few who aren’t expecting any anyway.  Also, talk about teaching that the end justifies the means. It never occurs to him to tell Santa the problem...