I'm getting real sick of anime that have excellent starting ideas only to squander them by not thinking it through. One thing I love to do is to take extract the good parts of flawed things, and one really fun creative exercise is matching up things that go well together. Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo are the best examples of what you get when you mix and match aesthetics coherently, though I don't think those shows are perfect from a substance point of view.
It would be a masterpiece of a show if...
1)Neon Genesis Evangelion, Argento Soma, and Rahxephon were combined. Merge Ayato and Shinji, keep Ryu as the protagonist. Take out Harriet. Keep Haruka/Misato. Keep Eva's mecha aesthetic but with Rahxephon's character art style. Keep Eva's opening and Rahxephon's ending. Use NGE's exploration of the problem, cap it off with Argento Soma and Rahxephon's answers.
Rideback was combined with The Fast and the Furious and Speed Racer (2008). Start it out with street racing, then escalate into driving across skyscrapers and dropping cars from planes to save the world, instead of going straight from ballerina redemption racing to terrorism and government rebellion. Keep Speed Racer's beating heart, charming cheese, and visual splendor. Keep Rideback's protagonist and her internal conflict along with its transformer motorcyles. Scrap the rest of the cast and replace them with a Dom, a Brian, a Letty, a Ludicrous, and a Tyrese. I actually don't like Fast and Furious that much, but if you take its best elements and lend them to Rideback, the combo would be oh so good.
2)Darker than Black was combined with Bourne. I've said enough about it in my review.
3)Moribito was combined with Twelve Kingdoms. The Taiki arc was the weakest part of Twelve Kingdoms and the only reason I don't hold it against it is because it was well meaning and it can be skipped. I mean, let's be honest here. Taiki and Chagum are pretty much the same character. INFP children, man. They're polite, eager to please, and have a big heart, but they're stereotyped as crying way too easily and they easily become boring characters. (Anne of Green Gables is a good example of how strong INFP children can be). Balsa is basically Risai. Anyway, Moribito's worldbuilding also pales in comparison to that of Twelve Kingdoms. Its message about the importance of respecting nature, nonviolence, and folk traditions/oral storytelling, would fit all too well in Twelve Kingdoms and the story of Balsa and Taiki would greatly complement the masterpiece of the third arc in 12K. Moribito's major problems are slow pacing, lack of suspense, and lack of adversity for Chagum, which is necessary for his growth. All Chagum does is learn to live the life of a peasant and do some chores. Oh boo hoo you developed so much because you learned to skin a deer and played around with a spear. Taiki cries way too much, but at least he had a more active role in the central conflict that made his story compelling. He had it way easier than Chagum, but he had a more active role. Chagum basically waited for the day to come and then spent the final episodes running and he was applauded for not pissing his pants.
Combine Chagum's circumstances, Taiki's active role, Twelve Kingdom's more grounded stakes, and Balsa's spear wielding awesomeness, and you'd have a 10/10 show on your hands. Twelve Kingdoms would also benefit greatly from Moribito's fight scenes.
By the way, even though 12K's last arc wasn't that interesting, it was still a better discussion on ruling a kingdom and morality than the entirety of Fate Zero. I would combine the last arc too, but there's nothing in Fate Zero worth salvaging- nothing in it can hold a candle to 12K's worst arc.
I would also say Yona of the Dawn, which also features a red haired queen and similar aesops, but again there's nothing worth salvaging from this series that Twelve Kingdoms doesn't do better.
4)Berserk was combined with Record of Lodoss War. Everyone knows Berserk has this epic story about ambition, dreams, friendship, and independence, but GODDAMN that ending. I highly respect it for Gut's journey to becoming his own man, Griffith's ambition being both his greatest trait and his downfall, and Casca's growing love for Guts (though she is designed to be a waifu by Miura). However, I also absolutely hate overly dark/edgy aesthetics. It seems like everyone praises Berserk for taking its grimdark up to 11 and then having Guts try to defy fate using his sheer willpower, but I'm like, uh, isn't that just an edgy version of your typical shounen BS? I've watched 30 minute videos on this, and through all the flowery presentation it boils down to, I love Berserk because Guts defies fate even though the worst possible things happen to him. Not exactly groundbreaking material. You have these oversized demons that kill hundreds of soldiers and then Guts becomes the first human in 300 years to scratch him. What's more battle shounen than that? The whole thing is an ultra-edgy gorefest, the type that an angsty teenager would write, but a well realized ultra-edgy gorefest.
Anyway, Record of Lodoss War has a beautiful fantasy aesthetic and themes of fate, war, and tragedy that would mix well with Berserk's themes. It's just that Record of Lodoss War is as thin as paper beneath its shiny exterior. Keep ROLW's aesthetics and world (I mean, don't tell me Berserk's world needs to be grounded. Ain't nothing grounded when Guts singlehandedly defeats 100 men while injured and you have a giant snake in the first episode. Besides, a fantasy world can still be grounded). Keep Guts but give him Parn's armor and face design. They basically have the same face anyway. Replace Casca's design with Deedlit's. Deedlit's fell too easily for Parn and her dynamic with him should be changed to the one between Guts and Casca. Keep Berserk's plot for the most part. Except the ending of course. Change the ending and the things leading up to it. Perhaps use ROLW's message about war and play that into an aesop concerning Griffith's ambition. Berserk built up a lot of themes but because of its ending it never resolved any of them, because you're supposed to read the manga. But I'm evaluating it by itself because I think it was good enough to stand on its own.
I was going to say King's Avatar and Mo Dao Zu Shi, but then they're both so thin that there's nothing to salvage except for their aesthetics. Well, they do have really cool aesthetics.
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