Crunchyroll for sale, Kissanime shutting down, and anime legally on YouTube in the future

 The current pandemic has left me with more time on my hands than I had in years, so I kinda wanted to go back into writing (at least for a while). And the last week has given me more than sufficient material to work with. 

For real, it's been years since the anime community has been shocked this much. And I remember writing about it last time as well: See this post.

So let's connect the dots, shall we?

Part 1: AT&T is in huge debt and wants to fix that

AT&T? What does this have to do with anything, you ask? Well: everything! Back in 2018 AT&T purchased Otter media for the whopping sum of 1 billion dollars. The name Otter media may not ring a bell, but this is thé group that consisted of Crunchyroll, VRV, RoosterTeeth and a few others. This thus made AT&T the owner of Crunchyroll.

However, massive consecutive purchases and the Corona-crisis has left AT&T in a period of self-reflection to fix its massive debt situation. The company is 151 billion dollars in debt and needs HUGE restructuring in order to get it back into shape. Earlier messages confirmed that most of the staff of DC Comics (another subsidiary of AT&T) was fired and that the comic book industry will undergo a digital revolution (including stopping physical prints of single issues, stopping the DC Universe streaming service and other things).

Now, the old rumor of Crunchyroll being for sale has turned into pure facts. AT&T wants to sell Crunchyroll for 1 billion dollars or more and sees in Sony an ideal purchasing "partner". However, AT&T is trying to milk as much money out of this deal as possible, resulting in some bickering back and forth.

AT&T originally wanted 1.5 billion dollars, Sony balked at the price, and now they're talking with multiple partners about a sale price. Who these "other partners" are, is not revealed and may even be pure speculation/fiction to drive up the price. But I guess we'll hear more about this in the future, since deals like this can take months to complete (if not years).

Part 2: Kissanime has closed its doors

Huge news came this past weekend when fans had to read the news that Kissanime and its content servers were taken down by copyright owners. 

This news does not come out of nowhere. Back in June, Japan reinforced its copyright protection laws and made it easier to strike towards people who upload copyright protected works (anime, manga, magazines, books and other forms of media or academic papers). This clearly gave copyright owners the right tools to finally go after sites who provide streams and downloads of anime, like Kissanime. It has been one of the biggest thorns in their side for the past decade, so it obviously had the biggest target on its back.

But it's also obvious that they won't stop there. (in)Famous anime torrent site Nyaa had survived its earlier takedown which I reported on a few years ago (that post aged horribly, considering it bounced back a week later or so). But with the takedown of Kissanime, I think it's safe to say that Nyaa will probably be next on the radar of the copyright owners.

Let's not beat around the bush: The intent of the Japanese copyright owners is to eliminate fansubs and especially end groups that steal legal streams and spread them as their own (most notoriously offenders being Horriblesubs and Kissanime).

Will this work? That is a big question. Prior famous takedowns of Piratebay and Nyaa have not really worked, since alternative sites quickly take its place. But takedowns of "content sharing services" like MegaUpload, Rapidshare, Limewire, and others have worked. It all depends on how much of a witch hunt the copyright owners are willing to go on. With the Japanese law now at their sides, we may see a notable change in how anime is "shared" in the future.

And on that note...

Part 3: YouTube channel AnimeLog will host anime legally

Source: https://variety.com/2020/streaming/asia/japan-animation-unified-youtube-anime-initiative-1234728555/

Link to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsnDtu-g18tDA4miToMOjXQ/videos

Toei Animation, Kodansha, Nippon Animation, Tezuka Productions, Shogakukan-Shueisha productions and Shinei Animation have banded together, and together with an influx from American money will make anime legal for viewing on YouTube. This American money being Benjamin Grubbs and the investment venture Next10 Venture.

While the first uploads will be exclusive to Japan, the uploaded titles will eventually get subbed into multiple languages (including English, obviously). 

What content is going to uploaded is still up to question. But most likely it's older anime (like Black Jack and Astroboy which are present in the banner), and family-friendly anime (I've read things like Doraemon, Shin-Shan and others). 

Now the big question as to WHY and why now? Simple: Combating piracy. One of the few valid remarks that the internet had on Kissanime's existence is "preservation of older titles". Titles that aren't on streaming services and where the content is out of print or very hard to find. This can fix that issue. And if it's successful, maybe even more in the future. There's a huge library of anime that can be added.

But a few questions remain. 

Question: Will EVERY anime title in existence appear on here? No, definitely not. The bigger  titles are just too profitable to sell through distributors instead of YouTube ads. While I'd love to see more titles on here, it's obviously not going to go that fast.

Question: Is this the end for Crunchyroll and Funimation? No, definitely not. However, in the case AnimeLog becomes a success, both may see their catalog shrink over time (not immediately). 

On Funimation's side, I think it's noteworthy to mention that one of the production companies absent from the AnimeLog description is Sony/Aniplex. They own Funimation and they clearly do not want to be part of this YouTube endeavor (yet). So it's safe to say that the amount of Aniplex/Cloverworks titles on this channel will be limited, if any at all. Funimation dubs will not be present either. So if you think about it, regardless of AnimeLog's success, this will have little to no impact on Funimation's business.

Crunchyroll on the other end? Not in the beginning, at least. Crunchyroll focuses more on new titles, which sure aren't going to appear here (yet). However, if this channel does become a success, Crunchyroll's catalog may take a hit over time, as licenses may no longer be renewed. We've already seen a lot of titles disappear from CR very recently. And if AnimeLog becomes a success and becomes larger, I wouldn't be surprised if more were to follow in the coming months and/or years.

And with a lot of titles disappearing from the service over time, what is left for them? The Netflix method: Branding yourself with original content with the Crunchyroll Originals. If Crunchyroll can host many original titles that will not appear on AnimeLog, it will secure its own future.

On that note: let's circle back to Part 1 of this post: If AnimeLog becomes a success and becomes the future for anime streaming, is Crunchyroll still worth more than 1 billion dollar? I think most people would agree it is not. However, this is a speculative area, and I doubt things will go that fast overall, and thus very unlikely the value would drop very fast (I'd be surprised).

Also, why is Sony/Aniplex is seriously bidding for Crunchyroll right now? This is because they want more exclusive content to stand strong against any challenger in the current Streaming wars.

One final question: WILL AnimeLog become a success? Only time will tell. Daisuki wasn't the greatest success (though that may have been because Aniplex/Sony bailed on them), but maybe this will be the future of streaming. We'll see what happens.

For now, the best we can do is subscribe to AnimeLog and watch the content they provide when it becomes available in your country. If we all partake in this, AnimeLog may become the success that everybody hopes it will be.

Always remember: Because moe

Bonus question! With Kissanime gone, where can I watch anime legally? One address: because.moe. No, really! Because.moe is the anime streaming search engine. Select your region (limited to US/CAN/UK/AUS), type in your title and follow the link they provide in the icons.

Note: If you live outside of the mentioned regions and some links leads to the classic: "not available in your region", try scouring through Yatta-Tachi's ultimate list of streaming sites for alternatives. There sadly isn't a fix-all for everybody worldwide, but I can only hope that AnimeLog will fix that at least somewhat in the future.

That's it from me at this moment. 

V out.

Edit: Also, on a side-note: there's already a fake Animelog channel out there, and I of course had linked to that one first. God dammit all! this caused a few structural changes to the post. Sorry for that.

A talk about anime, Netflix, Funimation, Sony, Aniplex and Daisuki

Wow, it's been quite a news heavy week on anime side. Usually I don't bother doing "anime news" posts, since most people know to check the ANN and CR news page from time to time. But this time around, I wanted to give a few remarks. Since there's a LOT going on which has a BIG impact on the future of how we watch anime in the future.

As usual, I first looked at this with a negative approach ("All signs of a new anime bubble!"). But after a few days of thinking this through, I realized it may not be as negative as I first thought. It's just... change. And we'll have to adapt to change, whether we like that or not.

Let's go over these news stories one by one.

Netflix announces huge anime lineup for the following year

Sources: Various, from Netflix' YT channel to various press releases on ANN, Comicbooknews and others. This week was a huge week for Netflix announcements concerning anime. Netflix had a huge press conference in Japan and announced several new series coming to Netflix in the following year and gave a few dates for expected updates. Here's the updates to already known titles:

• Little Witch Academia (second half): August 15
• Fate Apocrypha (season 1): November 2 (US/CAN), December 2 (rest of world)
• Kakegurui: 2018 (no exact date)
• Children of the Whale: Already announced earlier this month, but re-confirmed this Wednesday. The anime starts airing on Netflix Japan this coming Fall season. Rest of the world will be later.
• Godzilla: Monster Planet: Also a re-confirmation. The animated Godzilla movie will first run in Japanese theaters in November of this year. After the theater run, it will become available on Netflix Worldwide.
• A.I.C.O. Incarnation: A Studio Bones anime original for Netflix. It's 12 episodes and will air in Spring 2018 (worldwide?).
• Devilman Crybaby: It's confirmed to be 10 episodes that will air in Spring 2018. If you're unfamiliar with Devilman, Netflix currently streams the series Cyborg 009 Vs Devilman. You may want to watch that if you want to have an idea of what Devilman is about.
• Baki: I'm excited for this. I like the Baki series manga (127 volumes at this moment and still running) and has already resulted in an OVA and 2 seasons of 24 episodes back in 2001. This new anime is based on the "Baki" sub-series which ran between 1999 and 2005, and will focus on the "Most Evil Death Row Convicts" story arc, which is set after the series that have already been animated (hint). The anime will be animated by TMS Entertainment (I like their more seinen-focused direction in the last few years) and will consist of 26 episodes. The anime will air (in Japan) somewhere in 2017 (I presume in December?). No news on when it will air in the West. Somehow I hope that the other Baki series will get a Netflix release as well. May help re-vive interest in the Baki franchise.
• Cannon Busters: LeSean Thomas' comic book already had a Shortfilm anime adaptation funded via Kickstarter (cool). An now Studio Satelight is doing a 12-episode series of it. I can only say: Awesome. No specific date yet, but let's assume somewhere in 2018.
• Lost Song: An anime original series co-created by Liden Films (infamous for Berserk '16) & DWANGO (known for Mirai Nikki among others). The anime will air in Japan starting January '18 and will probably see a release in the West on a later date.
• Sword Gai: The manga created by the same guy who brought the world Kamen Rider is finally getting an anime adaptation. The production had some delay (it was originally announced back in 2014), but will finally see the light of day this coming Spring 2018... Globally! Animation will be done by Studio DLE inc. (known for Akiba's Trip amonst others).
• B: the Beginning: First announced as "Perfect Bones", but now renamed to B the Beginning (with B standing for Bones, I guess?). The story is an anime original and created by Studio I.G. And the anime will be released worldwide on Netflix in Spring 2018.
• Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya: A CG remake of the original Saint Seiya fits in with the dozens of remakes of classic anime series. It was only a matter of time Saint Seiya would be handled. However: The first season of this new series will be 12 episodes and will contain the start up to the Silver Saints Story arc... which was 35 episodes in the original. I have mixed feelings about this. I realize there's a HUGE amount of filler in the original series (not to mention slow pacing), but this reduction is just ridiculous. On animation side, this is a Toei franchise, so it's animated by Toei... in full CG. Also mixed feelings on that.
• Rilakkuma: Kids anime about bears in Miffy / Hello Kitty style. No surprise, it's from the company behind Hello Kitty. Much ignored by news outlets due to it being a kiddy anime. But presumed release somewhere in 2018.
• And last but not least... Violet Evergarden: Just announced yesterday in Germany's AnimagiC 2017. Kyoto Animation's new Project already had its first episode premiered at Anime Expo a few weeks ago and did the same now at AnimagiC, with a full panel explaining further details. The show will air on Netflix Japan this upcoming January, with the rest of the world following in Spring 2018.

Lots of good news. But also lots of frustrated people due to the continuous delay of releases between East and West. Kakegurui will be released only "somewhere" in 2018? It's already the most pirated anime this season, and this announced delay is NOT going to help that (*sigh*). The few "worldwide" releases in this press conference may be a sign of changes to come in the future. Let's hope for that.

Oh, and on a side-note: The Live-action Death Note Netflix movie/flop(?) will be available from August 29. That'll be fun times for movie reviewers. I'm going to tune in as well then. Wish me luck.

Financial report states Netflix is in billion-dollar deep debt

Source: L.A. Times

Next to the big fun announcements, Netflix tried to make people forget about this earlier news report. Netflix apparently has a billion dollar debt... but it's normal, according to their investors? That's about the only positive thing I can say about this, but let's just say I'm a bit worried about the continued existence of Netflix.

The L.A. Times has created a report stating that Netflix has a debt of several BILLIONS of dollars (not millions but billions). And while the initial report was wrong, it's still a big red number. The correction?: L.A. Times originally stated the debt was 15.7 billion, while Netflix corrected that to 4.8. Okay, that's less than 10% of initially stated, so a correction was necessary. But 4.8 billion dollar is still a huge debt!

And yes, everybody invested in Netflix finds this apparently pretty normal since Netflix has always worked with debts in order to finance their business. And the financial "game plan" that Netflix has layed-out to its investors has them content with their plans for the future.

I'm no financial expert, so I personally can't say if this is a normal way of working for a streaming service or TV-station. And their financial plan may indeed succeed and bring them many years of success (god, I hope so). But I'm worried, because constant debts aren't healthy for any company. And I'm honestly not alone in this way of thinking. Industry experts are already warning for a "Netflix Bubble". Let's cross fingers and hope this isn't going to be a repeat of the anime bubble from a decade ago...

Funimation is bought by Sony Pictures

Source: Variety

The big surprise early this week was the bomb that Funimation has been bought by Sony Pictures Television Networks (that IS the full name of the TV-series sub branch of Sony) for the sum of $143 million. And yes, while it had been reported earlier this year that "multiple partners" were looking to purchase Funimation, it still feels like a surprise to anime fans in general.

And this should be good news, right? While Funimation is thé standard for licensing and dubbing anime in the US for the past two decades, it's still a relatively small player in the TV and movie business overall (don't forget, anime IS still considered a niche product in the entirety of entertainment). So having a big company like Sony behind its shoulders, should put them in a real solid foundation, and may push anime towards mainstream acceptation, right?

Yes, in theory. But it's having many people worry about the future of anime in America, not to mention the deal with Crunchyroll to share their streaming libraries. Sony Pictures isn't exactly been known for their "great business decisions" in the past few years (putting it nicely here).

There's also the fear that Funimation may close its streaming service all together to have everything move to Sony's online service "Crackle". And if you've never heard of that, neither did I until this week. That's how well known this service is in the world of streaming.

And while I think the dubbing division of Funi is in no risk of any change (in fact, Sony may take use of it), the current distribution partnerships (both of movie releases as physical releases) may have to merge with whatever Sony currently has.

Another good thing is that Funimation will have a hold of all Sony anime movies (like the Cowboy Bebop movie, Satoshi Kon's movies and others). Bad thing is that Funi may have to focus their dubbing efforts in Sony/Aniplex projects (read as: anything A1 Pictures spits out, whether it's "good" or horribly bad) and less on other projects.

But a lot of these questions are still up in the air. ANN's Answerman has tried to answer some questions. But for other effects, we'll have to see what announcements are going to be made in the coming weeks/months.

Although, while talking about Aniplex projects...

Daisuki officially ends on October 31

Source: Daisuki itself

One of the bigger Streaming Services of legal anime is Daisuki. I have been praising the service as one of the alternative streaming services. This service was part of Bandai-Namco and held most of its titles (availability depended on licenses).

And yes, It has quite a few anime series on its site, like Eromanga Sensei, a LOT of Gundam series including Iron-Blooded Orphans, Tales of Zesteria the X, One Punch Man and several others. Yes, even here in Belgium.

But people were aware that things had "slowed down" on the site recently. Several of its licenses were either ending or became available on other streaming sites (like the Gundam series becoming available on Crunchyroll) and no real new titles were added this summer season (that I'm aware of). They were also absent from recent anime conventions where they usually took part in.

So Tuesday came the announcement that the streaming service is officially ending at the end of October and in December everything that was connected to Daisuki will be removed from the internet.

Has this something to do with the Funimation deal? Yes, definitely! Aniplex (subsidiary of Sony) is one of the five studios who was partnered with Daisuki and had 13.4% of its shares. So yes, there IS a connection between the two cases.

Is this bad or good? THAT all depends on what the four other anime studios backing Daisuki are going to do. Aniplex obviously is going to use Funimation and/or Sony's streaming services for their anime. But are they going to "involve" the other animation studios behind Daisuki as well into their new plans (like Toei and TMS), or did Aniplex bail this "team-up" all together? The coming months will probably provide us with more answers.

Afterthoughts

There have been some questions about the financial gains of streaming sites in general, not to mention anime streaming sites (which, once again, is a niche). But all these news messages in this post are a sign that the anime industry is changing in general. If anything, I think this may push anime into actual mainstream and out of its niche.

I'll be following the anime industry related news more closely now. And it's bound to follow.

Until next time, V out.

First off: beware, there are some minor spoilers in this review. I'll keep it to a minimum, but you've been warned ahead of time.

If you want to remain spoiler-free (as you should), go watch the movie. It's good! Best Spider-Man movie since Spider-Man 2.

V Reviews: Spider-Man Homecoming

Some thoughts prior to watching the movie

When Amazing Spider-Man 2 came around, the premiere in Belgium (and Europe in general) was more than a week ahead of the US. We warned everybody to stay the hell away from it. In response we now got the release a week AFTER the US. Eh, it could be worse. DC has punished us for the same thing (badmouthing BvS) by pushing Wonder Woman almost a month after the US release, way after the hype had passed. Still kind of annoyed by that (hence why I didn't bother writing a review for that).

If you want to know my sentiments about Spider-Man? I friggin' love the franchise. I grew up with Spider-Man TAS from the 90s (one of my favorite shows) and I've read many of the comics ever since. And any kind of interpretation of the character at least gets a chance from me. So if you want to know my favorite Spider-Men?

1. Spider-Man TAS: Still the best to this day, even though it hasn't aged that well. The reason why this is nr 1 is because this series had multiple seasons to explore the most of the Spider-Man lore compared to any other series and did those things justice. Heck, even the animated Clone sage was better than its comic counterpart (though for obvious reasons).
2. Spectacular Spider-Man: Great show. Cancelled WAY too soon to be replaced with one of the worst. If it had at least one more season and a proper ending, it certainly would've topped Spider-Man TAS.
3. Reimy's Spider-Man Trilogy: 2 great movies, one bad one
4. Spider-Man The New Animated Series: Better known as Spider-Man MTV. Kind of liked the re-invention in CG. Had good moments while it lasted. Silver Sable and Electro were the most memorable things here.
5. Spider-Man Unlimited: A sequel of sorts to Spider-Man TAS that took place in a totally different planet. Kind of worked, but was way too weird for it to really catch on. Cancelled after one season.
6. Spider-Man and his amazing friends: Boy this hasn't aged well. I kind of want to like this. This was supposed to be Human Torch, Iceman and Spider-Man. But since Iceman and Torch were too much alike, they changed her for the original female Firestar. Nice twist that gave this series something noteworthy compared to the next two entries.
7. 80s Spider-Man: In the middle on this. Can't remember much of this, so I'll put it in the middle.
8. 60s Spider-Man: Hard to criticize this, since the show is so old and I can't bear to ever watch this again. But it's been the source of tons of golden memes, so I can't really be mad at it.
9. Ultimate Spider-Man: Boy, did I give this series a chance. And another one. And another one. After a certain certain episode where Spider-Man proved himself to be better than both Wolverine and Captain America I was so disgusted by it that I stopped watching it all together. This series is bad, should get cancelled and go burn itself in a junkyard. The one good thing this series has done is Deadpool. Deadpool is the best character of Ultimate Spider-Man. That's how bad this series is.
10. Marc Webb's Amazing Spider-Man 1+2: The first was "bleh". It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't good either. I hated Garfield's impression of Peter Parker, but his Spider-Man character was decent and the chemistry with Gwen Stacy worked! But then came ASM2 and with it came the first movie i saw in theater and walked away from totally pissed. This movie sucked so bad.

What this movie gets right: Not re-hashing the origin story AGAIN!

You know what everybody complained about in Batman Vs Superman? Everybody hated on the YET-AGAIN origin story for Batman. We've seen it several times at this point. Most people know by now how Batman "began". So seeing it being done again just was another drip of oil being poured onto the lit fire

In Spider-Man Homecoming the writers stayed away from it. No spider-bite, no uncle Ben, no weirdly annoying subplot of Peter's parents that goes nowhere (looking at you, ASM2). Peter was introduced in Civil War and now his story starts from that point onward. No looking back at "how it all began". And that's good, because the movie already takes up more than 2 hours without that.

A few more things get omitted from this film, like the over-reliance on the spider-Sense and "swinging through the city to show off how good (or dated) our CG is". Yeah, the Reimy films didn't age well on that part.

What this movie gets right: Villains

Marvel villains suck in general. But there's two groups of villains in the Marvel universe that are as good as Batman's rogue gallery: The rogue gallery of the X-Men and especially Spider-Man. And while a lot of people were skeptical of seeing the Vulture (of all things) being adapted to the movie screen, I must say the adaption was AMAZING! Michael Keaton smashes EVERY OTHER incarnation of the Vulture out of the park and re-introduces him as a working man. A common man who went the villain route due to being forced there by "the big guys". And there's a plot twist in the story (I'm not going to spoil) that even cements him harder into the spider-lore and genuinely turned him into one of the best Marvel Cinematic Universe villains to date (which is not THAT hard, all things considered).

And next to the Vulture, we get a few more Spider-Man Villains in here, working as henchmen for the Vulture. And honestly, this is how that works best. I know people have complained about it, but let's be real. Shocker has always been a kind of a "lackey" for a greater villain, so seeing him work under Vulture makes sense. And Tinkerer was never that well known, so him being part of Vulture's crew made sense.

And then there's the setup for another villain that will (most likely) appear in the sequel. Most people caught the tattoo on the bad guy both times he appears and branded him as said villain. But I guess most of them never heard it when the Vulture's crew was talking about said villain's actual name (not going to spoil it) earlier in the movie. I guess I'm a little bit too much of a Spider-Nerd, so I caught it immediately and got my "oooooooh" moment there.

What this movie gets right: Re-introducing classic characters in a modern setting

Guess what. Queens of the 60s isn't the same Queens as it is today. Today's Queens is a melting pot of cultures and minorities. Asians, African-Americans, Northern Africans, Latino's, Italians and many other people make up the people of current-day New York. So it wouldn't make sense if every Spider-Character is Caucasian. And I kind of like it that both Peter and the Vulture are some of the few white people in a totally culturally mixed environment.

Is it pandering? Maybe. But New York is culturally very diverse. If this was the US outback, where >90% of the population is white, then an approach closer to the comics would've worked better. But again, this is New York. This multicultural approach works the best in this specific environment.

Also, Flash no longer being an archetype cliche bully works wonders. He's still an asshole, but he's no longer a 70s or 80s high school movie archetype of a bully. He's now being an obnoxious rich kid that goes to every club activity and after-school activity that Peter has as well, so he can't ignore this asshole.

Zendaya as the new MJ (not that much of a spoiler, it's everywhere on the internet) kinda works. It's still kind of iffy, mostly because she and Holland at this moment still have 0 chemistry. We'll see what a sequel brings.

What this movie gets right: A dorky Peter and a funny Spider-man

Tobey Maguire did a perfect job portraying Peter Parker as a dork, but felt kind of awkward when he donned the Spider-Man mantle. Andrew Garfield was way too cool to portray Peter. That never really worked. And his Spider-man was often more of a jerk than genuinely a funny guy. Tom Holland is both a dork as Peter, as well as an inexperienced, yet funny Spider-Man. And I love it. Depending on how Sony (mis)uses Tom Holland, this may end up being the best incarnation of the Spider-Man character to this date.

Time for some nit-picking!

Note: the following may sound a bit negative, but at best I'm just nitpicking at a good movie. Please take that into account.

What this movie doesn't get that right: MCU Connections

Before I start my complaint, first some kudo's. Marvel's writing team did their best to work in Spider-Man into the MCU and retconning "the kid" from Iron Man 2 as Spider-Man. But there's a few moments where I really frown my brows. How many years have passed since the Avengers movie? EIGHT? Really? That was never established before.

And while the cameo's from Iron Man, Happy Hogan and Pepper are limited to the bare minimum, some things still feel forced in. It's like Spider-Man's tech suit itself. This movie often feels like it is in "baby mode", with training wheels attached to it. And while this franchise needs it (considering the last three movies), it feels like pandering.

Though as a side-note: the tech suit with its many easter eggs was fun to watch as a total Spider-Nerd. I giggled at all the little details I recognized. But I doubt many people recognized the many easter eggs as well.

What this movie doesn't get right: Avoiding movie tropes, only to fall right back into it

Oh, this movie tries so hard at avoiding any movie trope. It's like they did research on Honest Trailers and CinemaSins and made a checklist of things to avoid or to better explain. And while they did their best, they can't avoid falling right into it. Perfect example? Minor "bad guy" Aaron Davis gets caught by Spider-Man and tells him who his real target is. And when Peter is running away, he yells "Wait, I haven't even told you where he is!", which is a great answer to the movie trope of heroes popping up out of nowhere where the villain is.

And that WOULD have been a really good sneer at countless movies that use this common trope... if they didn't fell into that same trope about an hour later into the movie (*facepalms*). Yeah, in the finale Peter suddenly pops up out of nowhere without the use of trackers. And that's sad, considering the movie takes so many attempts to specifically avoid this movie trope, having an explanation ready for every other random appearance.

What this movie doesn't get right: Visual effects

Thank god, this doesn't happen all the time. But there really are a few moments where the visuals just fail. Most notably is the first encounter between Vulture and Spider-Man. It's unwatchable, plain and simple. The shaky cam and the horrible angles ensure you can't make anything of the scene except: "Peter got picked up and dropped". All the rest from that scene? Unwatchable. Luckily the encounters after that have a better choreography.

Another weak point is the sometimes bad CG-ing of Spider-Man swinging around. Once again, doesn't happen in the entire movie. But the moments where the CG team drops the ball, it really shows. But then again, it's an issue that has occurred in EVERY Spider-Man movie, so I assume it's just very difficult to do.

Lastly, the homage to the debris lifting scene from the Ditko days was kind of undercut by the poor filming choices. It's not bad per sé... It just could've been done better.

So how does it compare to the other Spider-Man movies?

Hold on before you fire shots. I liked the movie. My "what this movie doesn't get right" parts are only to highlight a few of the weaker points in an otherwise GOOD movie. Think of it as constructive feedback for a sequel.

And it is constructive feedback, bacause this IS the Best Spider-Man movie ever since Spider-Man 2. I'd honestly give this an 8,5/10. And I need to rewatch that one in order to give a proper judgment. But at the moment, this may be the second best of all Spider-Man movies. And a noteworthy 4th place in my earlier top list of all Spider-Man related shows/movies. Let's hope Sony keeps it up in the future...

A sad future

Sadly enough, this isn't only a Marvel property. It's also a Sony property. And Sony has a horrible sleight of hand when handling their franchises. As long as people like Amy Pascel, Avi Arad and Tom Rothman are attached to the Spider-Man brand, it will continue to fail if not properly managed by Marvel. And all of them have already shown signs of future failure. The "Glass Ceiling" movie that was canned suddenly got back on track. So did the Venom movie and the Sinister Six movie. And let me tell you right now: Unless a miracle occurs all three of those movies are going to suck big time or disappoint fans in a big way. I honestly thought the Spider-franchise was saved when Sony and Marvel joined hands. But I couldn't have been more wrong. Sony just cannot learn from their mistakes... (*sigh*). I can only hope I'm wrong here.

Ending on a positive note

But let's end on a positive note here. Let's just ignore all corporate shenanigans and focus solely on this movie. Spider-Man Homecoming IS a good movie and IS worth your time.

Until next time, V out.

PS: I'll edit this a few times for pictures. It's kind of a long block of text right now.