Ninjkabat's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Dancing Tumors]

Cool idea

Yup, that's pretty much exactly how that recording session went. Tumors showed up and magic happened.

It's a nice idea. Maybe not the best executed, but it shows some promise. The lip synching actually wasn't too bad, especially for the spoken word interludes.

But, my curiosity gets the better of me: how ever did you come up with the idea of tumors singing my song?

Hohohotdog responds:

well, the tumors came first, I was just looking for a good a capella song to make them sing and dance to. Me and my friend have a whole thing with tumors, suffice to say, it's more of an inside joke than anything.
And the main reason why the synching wasn't great for the singing parts was because, due to the fact that they're repeated so often, I just made symbols and inside them, I had the frame by frame for one execution of whatever singing part it was, and then spaced it so it repeated in synch, of course, the fps wasn't perfectly aligned with the song, so after many many times around it would get somewhat out of synch. That's why the spoken parts were better, because they only went once I didn't have that problem. It means a lot to me that you liked this, so thanks!

[Universal Studios Florida]

Well, how horrible.

I am also appalled that this got passed into the portal. It was a rediculously stupid idea which was implimented in a lazy, half-assed manner. We understand that you have opinions, but, contrary to your belief, the internet does not care that you had a miserable time at Universal Studios Florida.

This would be better off as a blog, a myspace rant, or possibly a poorly produced video review on youtube; the idea doesn't stand alone as worthy of having a flash animation around it.

And for the animation, I can safetly say that my seven year old cousin has actually produced test animations that show more creativity, technical skill, and artistic merit than this little steaming pile you've produced. And I don't want to hear your standard defense of "J00 no have fl4sh. GTFO." I actually am a flash animator who has contributed to this site, so I know what I'm talking about when I say that this would take anyone with modest intelligence about 5 minutes to produce.

Anyway, that's all. I'm done berating you now. I'm sure that you'll come up with a very n00b-ish sounding response that either questions my sexuality or otherwise unsuccessfully tries to belittle my manhood. But doing so would only prove my point about your lack of maturity and tact. So, good luck with that. I'm just glad that I got to add another zero to the review score of this piece of crap.

Grumio responds:

Welcome to Newgrounds.

I understand that you have opinions, but, contrary to your belief, the Internet does not care that you had a miserable time watching this flash or disliked it.

Obviously it does.

Yeah, you kind of hit the nail on the head there, even though there really is no attempt at creativity or art to be better than. That being the TOTAL POINT AND ALL.

Also, I always check before I denounce someone for not being an author.

You just went on a four paragraph rant about a flash that you will never see again, I don't even need a response to bring your manhood into question.

(Notice, fags, the huge difference between an animators review and all the non-animators. Lol.)

[Awesome Video Games Ep21]

Not the best game to feature, but still funny.

While Fighting Golf isn't the most interesting game ever devised for the Nintendo Entertainment System (which is the point of the whole episode), the style of quick camera jerks, overly energetic retro quips, and a misunderstanding of deceptive titles makes this a fine episode of AVG.

What the actual game lacked in entertainment, the producers made up for with over-the-top punching sound effects, tongue-in-cheek treatment of Lee Travino, and seizure-esque exhuberance on the part of the actors. I personally felt that this was one of the better episodes for the actor who played the father character; his comedy made me smile profusely.

So, all in all, not the best episode, but definitely not the worst. Keep it up, and keep looking for those obscure titles to feature, like Section Z, Rad Racer, or Deathbots.

FarFromSubtle responds:

Thanks for the thorough review dude! We love those! We will keep those titles in mind in the upcoming season!

[[L*]K1rby]

AWESOME!

Wow, that was completely and utterly Awesome, you guys. I mean, wow, I'm so simultaneously honored and overjoyed that my pesky little reviews annoyed you enough to make a crappy flash animation starring me. That serriously made my day. I mean, how much power do I have over you that my silly little comments made you mad enough to make this little steaming pile? Truely, I must be a master of ninja mind tricks to have enraged you so much. I kinda wished you would have used my more recent online moniker - The Ninjkabat - but I'm still happy to be a part of your horrible, horrible animation.

Now, onto the review. The animation was still pretty bad, but it was better than your last two submissions, which really didn't have any seperate moving symbols after your long intro animation. This one had at least seven different symbols that I counted, which when compared to zero is an increase of infinite%. You still have quite a bit to learn about symbol tweening, as made clear by the inwardly swinging arm rotation, which is caused by the two keyframes having different centering points. It's ok, though. I can tell you don't have much practice with tweens.

On the Japanese front, I really can't say you've gotten any worse. I couldn't find any grammar mistakes, or banal sayings, and I guess if an anime series you're piggybacking on spells Lucky Star in hiragana, then you can too. I kinda wished you would have written 'keikoku' in kanji, because there are a lot of homonyms for that word, and it could also mean government, short period, or courtesian, depending on which kanji you use. But, since I think I've established that you don't know any Japanese past what your dictionary can tell you, I'm not going to split hairs over it.

Now, the plot: much improved over your last couple animations. As any literature class will teach you, conflict drives plot most of the time; and there was definitely conflict driving this plot. Your last couple submissions are boring and lame because nothing happens outside of your characters talking about nothing. In this submission, there is definitely an outward conflict that culminates in the battle sequence which makes your flash much more able-to-be-watched. If you'll notice, this submission's score broke into the low 3's, which is something that can't be said of your last two flash submissions. I'm pretty sure that the sole reason is that there actually was a plot.

And with that, I think I can end my review. Again I thank you for thinking me a big enough nuisance to make me an enemy in your flash; it is something I will not soon forget. Sadly, though, I'm afraid that this will be my last review of your work, as I'm sure any one of my reviews will be applicable to your future animations, and as I really don't have any more time to waste on you guys. Nothing personal, I just want to finish college in 4 years, which means I gotta hit the books instead of berating you like this.

Peace out, and good luck with your future "animations."

Stealthily yours,
-The Ninjkabat

[[L*]Tsukasa Write]

Again, there is no humor

Just like the last animation that I wrote a review for from these creators, this flash is nothing but an attempt to take advantage of people's ignorance of the Japanese language instead of being actually funny.

For those of you that cannot read or write Japanese, the text in this movie says boring, banal sayings, like "the weather is good today," "is that so," "you are white, aren't you?" I believe that the creators simply copied and pasted these sayings from a Japanese textbook, and don't actually know much of the language themselves.

Which brings me to my main beef with all of this: it's not funny. It's not funny at all. It's boring and complete tripe in terms of animation. But, because the average viewer doesn't know that the Japanese is complete and utter nonsense, they are unable to understand how completely pointless these animations are. If they had used English, there would be no question about it: they would be blammed. But using Japanese is so much easier than being funny that these creatively stiffled individuals seek that as a means to get their submissions passed, which just isn't acceptable.

And the other thing is that it is pretty much the same animation as the group's submision before this: [*L]Konata Wright. Submitting two almost identical animations that a) don't make use of sensicle Japanese, and b) are completely devoid of any animation harder than a two-frame mouth is just not something I think voters on Newgrounds can afford to allow.

So, that's my take on this animation: total carp.

[[L*]Konata Wright]

Pretty boring

You should probably learn more Japanese before you try to make a movie with it. Although your grammar didn't contain any mistakes, it looks like you just copied and pasted some sample sentences from the Genki-textbook website. I mean "The weather is good today?" "This chair is black?" "I play tennis?" That makes no sense. You are probably relying on the fact that not many people can read or write Japanese, which is a poor substitute for humor.

So, please, work on a good concept before you try to make a movie about it. As it is, this flash is not funny at all, and I'm sure it's just confusing for those viewers who don't speak Japanese. You should work on developing a funny situation instead of taking advantage of people's confussion.

Oh, and on a side note, "Lucky Star" should probably be spelled out in katakana - the alphabet for loaned words. You wrote it in hiragana, the alphabet for native words. Even then, you misspelled "Lucky" by spelling it "raki," when the commonly accepted Japanese orthography is "rakki."

I'm just saying: you should learn Japanese before trying to make a movie in that language. If you want, I can do translation services for you in the future, but come up with a good idea first, and then I can help you translate it.

Konata-Izumi responds:

yatta ne. Also Raki Suta is spelt like that for a reason, it's spelt like that in the anime and used in all the title cards.
suishi shite onegaishimasu

[Up is Down Music Video]

Just a bunch o' shape tweens

Well, I will admit, the music you chose to "animate" for is quite good. I'm sad to say that your concept wasn't as well thought out.

I don't want to sound like a guy that's just saying, "no, you're wrong," but, serriously, I don't think this is a good concept for a video. Maybe you were trying to pull off the type of video that relies on crazy visuals to simulate the trippy nature of the music, but if that was your intent, than this was the wrong way to go about it. Shape tweens aren't that amazing, they tend to slow down the animation, and they just look unrefined. It looked like you just drew a bunch of random shapes with the pen tool, and then shape tweened the crud out of them.

I might be more lenient if the shape tweens were in time with the music, but they weren't even synched at all. The soundfile was an stream type, which meant that if I pressed rewind, I could get the song to play over itself, which, again, just looks unrefined when you're trying to make a video.

So, in an effort to keep my rantings short: think of a good idea before you start animating. You have to come up with something that people will enjoy seeing, and not just a slow-moving trip enducer. Please don't feel bad if this gets blammed, which I'm sure it will.

[a silent kill]

Getting better

You're getting better, joelyboy. There were definitely some good movements in this. The high frame rate helpped especially to give it a somewhat more professional look.

But, don't be surprised if it doesn't make it. Newgrounds' voters don't take kindly to animation tests. But there are definitely some good foundations here for a good, full-fledged flash animation. You just gotta develop your idea more.

[Jedi vs. Ninja]

Insteresting Style

Well, the animation style was interesting on this one. The actual drawings themselves weren't complex, but the high frame rate, mixed with constant motion, really gave a good sense of action. You also showed that you have a good handle of blurring and lighting techniques, which really gave the whole submission a nice and finished feeling. It may have caused a little lag at points to have so many blurred objects moving around, but that didn't really detract from the experience.

So, overall: very nice. I can tell you spent time on this. It was nicely concieved, nicely planned, and nicely excecuted.

But, on a very short side note, real life ninjas don't use chakra. Chakra is actually a Sanskrit word, and you can take it from me: there aren't many hindu ninja out there. Ninja actually are able to pull off such spiritual feats from meditation and the focusing of our Ki. Anyway, just a side note, since a lot of people get it confused because of that darn Naruto cartoon... -_-

[LL - Bannana Phone!]

Some things to improve, first and foremost.

Well, I'm terribly sorry to say, but for a first submission, it wasn't very good. Maybe it was alright for a first animation, period, but you really have to be proud of an animation before you should try submitting it to the portal. I know that this doesn't grant you the instant gratification that you seek when you posted this movie, but I'm just letting you know in as nicly, calmly, and eloquently as I can.

So, some things to fix. First off, the audio was out of synch. I don't know why it gets out of synch, but for some reason, it's a symbol of the newbishness of the flash if the audio isn't synched properly. Possibly the culprit is the low frame rate. If the frame rate is higher, there's less of a chance of the audio getting off by that much. So maybe you should experiment with that. Secondly, the actual animation. Flash is an amazing program in that it can take an object in this frame, know it needs to end up somewhere else in a certain number of frames, and fill in all of the steps inbetween, making the movement look smooth. I would suggest playing around with this, because animation that is just a manual change of position every beat is boring. I'm imagining it, and I'm certain that your same animation would have looked 5 times better if it had been motion tweened instead of just doing the choppy, poppy motion.

Third and final thing I have to say: work on an original idea. The banana phone thing has been done to death.

I hope this review was helpful. I intended it to be so.

madcat123 responds:

I will be redoing this one and then re-submiting it. On my computer it worked with music for some reason but i but in on the site and XP