ShangXian's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[U Rappin Bad]

This is probably one of the animations I love the most for the February month. I keep watching and re-watching it over and over to the point I almost memorized the lyrics. The animation is very rhythmic (pun intended), fluid and dynamic. I compared it to the original gameplay and I really like the rendition of this animation. It really does justice to the game itself. The fact that it is a remake of an old animation made 10 years ago, makes this video even more beautiful and enjoyable. The old animation is also very nice and if you look at it with the perspective of 10 years in the future, you can see it as a storyboard for this animation. Lately I'm discovering the character of PaRappa and the more I look at him (between fanart and gameplay) the more I love him, and this animation does nothing but make me love the character even more!

Every time I see PaRappa move like that at 00:16 I laugh like crazy XD the absent-minded expression on his face is too funny XD like he was lost in his own world and was barely listening to the basic requests. In fact, even Instructor Mooselini's face says it all and confirms what I think. I also love how a few seconds into the song, the hood of the car flies off, revealing the steering wheels and the blue and red gas and brake pedals. I found it funny as heck. My favourite line of the song is of course this:

"When I say boom boom boom, you say bam bam bam! No pause in between, come on, let's jam!"

It's interesting how in the game stage, bad mode the instrumental shifts from G major to E minor, giving it a more depressing tone, and an additional descending piano tune plays. The camera switches to a first-person view, showing how PaRappa is swerving the car left and right. Road signs are replaced with a "SLIPPERY ROAD" sign and a "DETOUR" sign on top, reflecting the driving difficulties.

The part I loved the most was at 00:26 when PaRappa breaks the steering wheel, detaching it XD so silly.

Fun fact: Mooselini appears as cameo in a comic from The Amazing World of Gumball.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/parappatherapper/images/5/52/Mooselinicameo.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20210605132536

This whole video is a mix of fun, silliness and talent. The animation movements seem to follow the types of movements when a person drives, such as changing gears. The colors are vibrant and the whole animation is really well done. Congratulations to both Frontpage and Daily 5th Place, well deserved!

[Fish - Animation Test]

This is a really lovely animation and I want to inaugurate my 100th review by sharing my two cents on this. I like how fluid animation is, the overall ambience and simple but funny plot. When I first read the title I thought about a simple fish animation with no plot but then I was glad to be wrong. I enjoyed it despite its short duration. I like how the small, little, yellow fish manages to outsmart the bigger fish. A thing I loved the most, along with the story, was the background. It gives me strong watercolours vibes and ooohhh, I notice the animation was made with Krita! Amazing, I have Krita but I never animated with it. Maybe a day I might, how knows but back to the movie.

The way the fish moves and swims around gave me, in a way, those Chinese animated movies from the 70-80s feel which are truly work of art, theater set in motion and I sense something similar in this work too. I am rewatching the animation over and over. I don't know if Krita allows the addition of sounds though. The only reason why I gave 4 stars instead of 4.5/5 was simply the lack of sound BUT I think that in an experimental piece like this, even this lack is an addition because it allows the mind of the viewer to create his/her/their own mental sound that fills the musical "void". I personally didn't create any mental sound, I wanted to enjoy the creation the way it is. The fish design is adorable and fits him perfectly even from a chromatic aspect since yellow has interesting meanings.

In the West, yellow is not a well-loved color. In a year 2000 survey, only 6% of respondents in Europe and America named it as their favorite color, compared with 45% for blue, 15% for green, 12% for red, and 10% for black. For 7% of respondents, it was their least favorite color. Yellow is considered a color of ambivalence and contradiction. It is associated with optimism and amusement, but also with betrayal, duplicity, and jealousy. However, in China and other parts of Asia, yellow is a color of virtue and nobility.

In the context of this animation yellow has a clear positive semantics which contrasts with the purple colour of the menacing, predatory fish. I love how the little fish turns around at 00:02, it melts my heart the level of cuteness of the movements. Plus I've noticed the shape manipulation of the fish's movements, great choice to enhance the dynamism and natural movements. It gives a more realistic vibe despite the minimalist style of both design and swimming way. I also noticed how the shape bending and twisting, during the movement sequences (i.e. always at 00:02 when the fish encounters the predator or a 00:05 when the predator opens the mouth and the fish looks in horror), give an added value in the emotional characterization of the protagonists of the story. I laughed and loved at 00:07 when the 'lil fish looks at the bigger one with a smile/smug on his face; it's adorable and funny at the same time.

Usually smaller fish live in big schools where they swim in the same direction in a coordinated manner and take advantage of the egoistical geometry group (you hope that you neighbour gets eaten first instead of you and the more you are, the higher chances are that you don't get caught), but in this short animation we see the resourcefulness of the little guy, who takes advantage of his smaller size (faster) and intelligence (he outsmart him and mocks him), winning over his danger. At the end the fish even manages to kick him off, saving his own life.

Really cool job, I hope more people will appreciate this^^ keep it up!

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EDIT 13/03/2025:

I raised the score to 4.5 after reading that the lack of sound was intentional since the project didn't need it.

I'm glad I made your day, keep it up. I would like to see other animations of yours!

DamianBaezArt responds:

Woah thank you so much for your review! You made my day!

This was a project for college, a simple animation. It didn't need sound. I don't think Krita can add sound, but I would add it on adobe Premiere if I have to. It was my first attempt at animation. I shared it to upload something in my profile, but I didn't expect someone to notice it!

I'm glad you liked it and thanks for taking your time to give me a review!

[Moss ball [GIF]]

Animation is very simple since it is a moss bouncing up and down on a white screen. I assume this is more like a test animation than an animation per se. I wonder which program did you use, just curious nothing more. The reason why I gave 2.5 is mainly due to the fact the moss is coloured and stands out nicely the white background. Maybe a shading would have made it even more appealing to the eye. If it wasn't coloured my vote would have been 2.00 and judging by the date you published it you reached a blammability level since at that time movies and games got blammed with a score inferior to 1.75. Now the the blam threshold has been raised from < 1.75 to < 2.00, meaning that now animations like this are more likely to be blammed.

If you want some tips about how to avoid future blams this old but good article points out some key points: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/65873#bbspost957090_post_text

Sadly besides the bouncing effect and the sound of moss which add a bit of detail, there is no much to say since there is no plot or story that allows me to give more contribution to this review. But fear not I know you are exploring this fascinating yet intimidating world that is animation, so I give you this playlist about animation tutorials made by NG users, it's very useful for people like you who want to explore animation: https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/creator-resources/tutorials/animation-tutorials

As tips I may give you here some:

-remember to upload the highest quality version you can within the website upload limits specified on the upload form, and if you need to compress your work, NG suggests HandBrake: https://handbrake.fr/

You can select the 1080p Fast preset, then set quality to 18 (the lower the better but 18 is considered pretty lossless) and VerySlow for encoding speed, if you have the time.

Here the screenshot made by Tom Fulp that illustrates what I said: https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/6b249fb16b5d5019e7b77b9c566b93c6

-if you are setting a bitrate for your work, NG suggests 40-50 Mbps for 3840 x 2160, 10-20 Mbps for 1920 x 1080 and 5-10 Mbps for 1280 x 720. Adjust and review your results.

-as for audio it's best recommended lossless audio like FLAC or ALAC, but if you encode your audio, always NG suggests the AAC codec which is default in HandBrake, and a 192 kbps bit rate for the best quality.

If you need 2D animation software there are some free options available such as:

-Krita
-OpenToonz
-Wick Editor
-Synfig

These are the ones I know sadly. Of course there are forum threads about animation so in case you want to learn more feel free to explore them as well. There is the potential to make interesting animations so don't feel discouraged by my review or initial difficulties in the learning curve of animation. Keep it up.

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UPDATE review:

ooooh, that's interesting, I didn't know you used Flip a clip as software, nice job since most Flip a Clip animations look a bit rigid and wonky, this one is very fluid and natural compared to those I've seen across the site. Nice job.

Scudlez responds:

If you want to know what app I'm using for animation, it's FlipaClip. By the way, thanks for the review, I know my animation isn't that good ( cause I've been practicing animation since October-November 2024) but I will take the advice from you and keep it in mind. Thank you !

[OLIVE PLACE, Luxury Inn: PILOT]

This is one of those gems that can be found in the Portal UJ section if you search carefully (yes I discovered this gem when I was watching several UJ movies). I loved everything about it starting from the fluidity of animation and 2D animated parts which make it highly enjoyable to look at. But I also loved the different types of animation for example at the beginning where we see puppets instead of animated characters. I don't know why but I have a soft spot for works that employ different media to animate things, it looks like each different media has its own moment to shine among others media which equally shine with them without prevailing one on another.

I was genuinely surprised when at 01:24 I saw animated stuff because I initially thought the entire movie was puppet-based animated which would have been great btw because characters look cool and cute at same time as puppets. I like how the 2D version of them is faithful to the puppet one. I loved the animated pixel mother and child around 01:32!

It is said that a person's true colour can be noticed by how they treat people who offer their services such as waiters, waitresses, porters, etc. well, I like how the episode managed to show how annoying the frog woman is since the start without unnecessary frills. She is annoying and a walking Karen XD I like that but I also loved the jazz band flies. Awwww my heart melted when I initially saw them not only because of the lovely, cute design but also because once again another different media has been used: Claymation.

It's interesting to notice how the annoying character of the frog immediately turns into something more sinister when she starts eating those poor flies and despite part of me wanted to justify this with "ok, a frog's visual system is specifically adapted to seeing little things that are moving across its field of vision - and not things that are sitting still" but still the flies were not common flies and seeing them get eaten saddened me. When she ate Bell-hop I felt horrified but I love how the music and the overall atmosphere counterbalance the moment of horror I experienced.

The stomach's details are awesome and once again a change in animation style can be appreciated. The switch in different types of animations is one of strong points of this pilot episode (I hope to see this in future episodes, please someone fund this talented artist! >:( ) along with the pace the story has. Seriously you don't get bored watching this because everything is kept at a rhythm that engages the viewer. The music pieces are especially awesome, particularly the song I nicknamed "Down in the belly of the beast". I like those two worms (part of me thinks they are some kind of parasitic worms, maybe Cestoda or Nematoda-like worms) singing the song.

I like that the flies managed to get out the belly of the beast thanks to Belle-Hop's plan and the driver's sacrifice (your sacrifice won't be forgotten). I laughed my ass off at the fighting scene at 06:39 XD. The mix of live action and exaggerated effects in the fighting sequence add funniness and silliness to the movie, thus helping to ease the tension built up in the first part of the movie. Awwww the part with the two telephones arguing was so sweet how it evolved at the end *_* nice message, really!

I love the entire episode and I hope to never see Edna again XD but I've noticed at the end a wasteland around the hotel so now I am super curious to see how the entire series will evolve and why this seems the only hotel around a place that seems to have experienced a kind of destruction (maybe a war, an explosion, who knows).

This is a great way to start your journey on Newgrounds and congratulations for the FP and Daily Feature (I honestly think you deserved the 1st place), totally well-deserved. I hope to see more of your works and I hope your characters will become part of NG culture, I already love them. Keep it up, you rock!

[Preview]

I really love how smooth animation is combined with fluid facial expressions. The background colour during the transition phase from normal bg to red-coloured bg really fits well the sense of imminent danger and it gave me a nice Ren&Stimpy vibe especially with Skipper's worried look. I love it in its short duration, I would watch such episode. It deserves a higher score in my opinion. Keep it up the amazing job!

[Epic Anime Chess]

First time I comment on a submission under judgement but I really loved and enjoyed this animation so much that I couldn't resist leaving a comment. First off I loved how fluid animation is, how movements feel natural and the overall simple environment with minimalist colours that help focus on characters.

Second I loved each character's design and how they evolved i.e. the bishop turning into a sniper.

Third the music, great music choice for each character. Each sample fits each character well, their personalities, abilities and role.

I really hope it gets high votes because it truly deserves

p.s. I loved the reference to Felix Colgrave's Double King for the King piece and nice behaviour contrast between the white and black King.