The Rose of Miku's Annecy Tales of the Underworld - Renegade Animation #182
In this episode, Captain Kaye and the Animation Guru discuss Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can't Sing, The Rose of Versailles, and Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld.
What’s going on, everyone? This is your Captain speaking, alongside my esteemed co-host, the Animation Guru! The reason why Cameron and I continue to do this show is because we genuinely enjoy talking about the wonderful world of animation. That’s why we wanted to begin this episode with a preview for this year’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival, and all that it had to offer. But without further ado, please tune into the podcast to hear the full discussion.
Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can't Sing
I know we’re a little late to covering this one, but if we’re being completely honest, it’s not very good. There are two reasons why we don’t like to bring up multimedia projects on our seasonal anime podcasts. One reason is simply because we already have a lot to cover, and crossing those off the list helps to lighten the load. The other reason is that they’re really not targeted at anyone except those who are already fans of the source material. In this case, the source material is a mobile game called Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! Anyway, I’ll let Cameron sum up how we both felt about this “movie.”
“While it has some solid songs and decent animation, Colorful Stage! the Movie doesn’t cover up for its weak story, a lack of help for viewers not aware of the game the film is based on, and it results in a flat experience.“ -The Animation Guru
The Rose of Versailles
I think I wanted to like this movie more than I actually did, because I know how important and influential the manga has been for over 50 years. As far as the animation is concerned, that’s probably the best part of this movie. The talented people at Mappa did a great job with these character designs, staying true to the spirit of the source material, while updating them for a modern audience. The biggest issue I have is with its pacing. You can’t cram 14 volumes of the manga into a near 2 hour runtime and expect a coherently told story, though I commend the idea of turning this into a musical in order to ease the transitions between time skips.
“A pseudo musical approach to the adaptation of Riyoko Ikeda’s classic manga doesn’t make up for a dense story where it focuses more on one lead than the other. It forces you to piece together what happened with its “focus on the major plot points and nothing else” pacing. Even Mappa’s animation can’t save it.” -The Animation Guru
Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld
Perhaps some day we’ll cover the entirety of both The Clone Wars and Rebels, but for now, I like how these Tales of… anthology series are my way into the animated world that Dave Filoni has created. Now, while I enjoyed the first half of this 6-episode limited series, it’s the second half that I found to have the more interesting story. If you wanted to see more of Cad Bane, this show has you covered!
“Tales of the Underworld is another entry in this anthology series weaves a compelling redemption arc for a sith assassin and the tragic origin story of one of the galaxy’s most dangerous bounty hunters.” -The Animation Guru
That’ll do it for this episode! Thank you all for joining us! We have provided a link to several GoFundMe pages in support of those affected by the 2025 Wildfires in LA. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10gvOxituYvxxknoY9IQa-YEqfK8WvCjcLBcg4hsmME4/edit?pli=1&gid=0#gid=0
