Today Rooster Teeths new 2D animation show Nomad of Nowhere aired so I decided to make a thread to discuss it.
The premise:
The hunt is on for the devious bringer of dark magic: The Nomad of Nowhere. Captain Toth, along with her bright-eyed companion Skout, are hot on the trail of the most wanted man in the world. But when Skout comes face-to-face with the sought-after bounty, she is forced into a difficult situation.
Because heaven forbid that a show bear the slightest resemblance to any other works of fiction that came before it. Everyone knows that true artists are not even the slightest bit influenced by any other works and are 100% creative and original, drawing only from their own untarnished imagination.
Also a blatant ripoff of what exactly? Avatar: The Last Airbender? Trigun? Westerns? Disney movies? Studio Ghibli? About a million other shows that look similar or have similar premises and that themselves took inspiration from other works?
Also a blatant ripoff of what exactly? Avatar: The Last Airbender? Trigun? Westerns? Disney movies? Studio Ghibli? About a million other shows that look similar or have similar premises and that themselves took inspiration from other works?
I mean just of the top of my head the fact that magic is extremely common in Avatar: The Last Airbender and pervades every part of the setting and story while magic is almost extinct in Nomad of Nowhere seems like a pretty fucking large difference if you ask me.
Or the fact that the Nomad is seen as a evil witch/bag of money on legs while the Avatar is basically the messiah/enemy of the state.
Or that one draws heavily from asian cultures while the other draws heavily from the wild west.
Or that the moral compass of the Zuko analogy is young, inexperienced and bookish as opposed to being old, experienced and spiritual. Etc.
Look. When you have a main character named "Toth" who looks like Toph wearing Zuko's outfit and has "toughness" listed as her first defining trait, and the plot involves hunting down a magical being who has resurfaced after 100 years, I don't think you can blame me for suspecting that the creators just put Avatar through a blender and called whatever came out their own. Especially given that this is a production company with a history of exactly this type of hackishness.
But, like I said, I'll be glad to be proven wrong when it goes public.
Look, when you have a main character named "Toth" who looks like Toph wearing Zuko's outfit and has "toughness" listed as her first defining trait, and the plot involves hunting down a magical being who's resurfaced after 100 years, I don't think you can blame me for suspecting that the creators just put Avatar through a blender and called whatever came out their own.
I can't blame you for thinking it has some similarities to Avatar but I certainly can blame you for jumping from "took some inspiration from a show" to "its obviously a ripoff, god these people suck and have no originality "
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Especially given that this is a production company with a history of exactly this type of hackishness.
I can't blame you for thinking it has some similarities to Avatar but I certainly can blame you for jumping from "took some inspiration from a show" to "its obviously a ripoff, god these people suck and have no originality "
Putting not!Avatar elements front and center in the advertising, and nearly to the exclusion of anything else about the show, waves a lot of red flags. At best, this was a major advertising misstep that misrepresents the show.
As for citations, I think arguing about RT's other creations is liable to derail this thread before it even properly starts. If you want to know why I think that blatant theft is in character for them, I think you know where to look.
Aka colourful but somehow still looking bland as all hell. Okay I just watched the Twitter video, but the colour pallete really reminds me of current Nickelodeon run time cartoons (they all suck btw).
Putting not!Avatar elements front and center in the advertising, and nearly to the exclusion of anything else about the show, waves a lot of red flags. At best, this was a major advertising misstep that misrepresents the show.
What not!Avatar elements? The only thing in the advertising that resembles Avatar is that there's a tough character with a name that sounds sort of similar to the word tough (which is probably why her name sounds similar to Toph) and who is playing a sort of similar role to Zuko in that she's hunting the main character. Big whoop. Having a misguided antagonist on the side of some kind of lawful authority hunting the kindhearted protagonist is hardly something unique to Avatar.
Aside from that the only similarity is a protagonist with special powers that's been gone for a very long time that has suddenly resurfaced. Which again, is nothing new and is a premise that has appeared in far to many stories to count even if we only count the stuff that came before Avatar.
Even the premise of "magic guy is back now he's hunted" is not something Avatar came up with and its explicitly not where Nomad took the concept from:
Today we announced a new show coming to Rooster Teeth Animation, a 2D show called Nomad of Nowhere. Whenever we choose to make a new show, we try to make it something fresh and different from things we've done in the past, and Nomad is no exception. It's a western/fantasy mash-up about a mysterious nomad traversing a western wasteland that hasn't seen magic in 100 years. But now there's a price on his head, and he's gonna have to avoid bounty hunters and captors who all want to score big when they bring in the world's last magical being. Think of it as two-parts Samurai Jack and True Grit with just a dash of The Lord of the Rings.
Avatar: The Last Airbender is about the only guy with the special powers needed to defeat the dark lord, and this guy vanished when the dark lord rose to power and only appeared again a hundred years later when the dark lord's empire is the dominant force in the world? And now the protagonist needs to deal with being a fish out of water as well as being hunted by the dark lord and his minions? Real original guys.
Or you know, we could just accept that every tale takes inspiration from the works that came before it and has done so since time immemorial and instead judge shows by their own merit instead of demanding that every show should bear no resemblance to any other show that came before it.
Disney as a company has become a absolute titan making all of the money by basically just taking works that other people made and re-branding them into new works (and also rewriting copyright law to stop anyone else from doing as they did). The Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of the most successful movie franchises in the world and its basically based on taking old stories that have been told and retold countless times for decades and just altering some stuff to make it fit the movie format, not exactly the pinnacle of originality. Tolkien borrowed heavily Germanic and Finnish mythology and Game of Thrones is basically just "The War of Roses: Generic Fantasy Edition". Etc
As for citations, I think arguing about RT's other creations is liable to derail this thread before it even properly starts. If you want to know why I think that blatant theft is in character for them, I think you know where to look.
You're right, this isn't the thread for you to wave your hateboner around. This is not a RWBY thread so whatever ridicilous hangups you have with that show are not relevant here. Nomad of Nowhere was not written or directed by any of the writers or directors of RWBY anyway, heck its not even the same animation department.
Aka colourful but somehow still looking bland as all hell. Okay I just watched the Twitter video, but the colour pallete really reminds me of current Nickelodeon run time cartoons (they all suck btw).
If Avatar had started out by putting a character named "The Highlandman" who looks like the Scottsman in a kimono in its advertising and emphasized the "character wakes up in the future" aspect to the near exclusion of all else? Yes, I'd have had the same misgivings.
You're right, this isn't the thread for you to wave your hateboner around. This is not a RWBY thread so whatever ridicilous hangups you have with that show are not relevant here. Nomad of Nowhere was not written or directed by any of the writers or directors of RWBY anyway, heck its not even the same animation department.
If Avatar had started out by putting a character named "The Highlandman" who looks like the Scottsman in a kimono in its advertising and emphasized the "character wakes up in the future" aspect to the near exclusion of all else? Yes, I'd have had the same misgivings.
In Nomad of Nowhere, which premieres on FIRST on March 2, a mysterious nomad traverses a Western wasteland — but a price on his head sends him on the run from captors and bounty hunters who all want to score big when they bring in the world's last magical being.
The series is announced and what we're given bears barely even the slightest resemblance to Avatar. The position of the Avatar itself was never mysterious, heck its laid out in clear terms with no room for uncertainty at the start of every episode. The Avatar is a also a singular existence because there can only be one, while the Nomad is just the last magical being left. The Fire Nation hunts the Avatar because the Avatar is a threat to their rule and is destined to bring balance to the world while the Nomad is hunted by everyone because he's worth a lot of cash. There's also no mention of him having been gone for 100 years in this announcement either, the emphasis is on the fact that he's worth a lot of money because he's magic. The setting is also specifically restricted to a wild west style wasteland while Avatar the Last Airbender was a story that focused on the entire world rather over focusing on a specific part of it.
First official poster art bears no resemblance Avatar and instead clearly and heavily evokes Westerns with outlaw protagonist. Again a emphasis is put on the mystery of the character while Avatar focused on the destiny. And the whole bounty hunting deal with one man against the world is much more reminiscent of Samurai Jack than Avatar: The Last Airbender, where Aang was only wanted in 1/4th of the world while the rest at least nominally supported him.
Here's the first real advertisment for Nomad of Nowhere. It features a mysterious faceless protagonist creating a small army of cutesy Studio Ghibli looking rock minions that have Comic Relief written all over them which then proceed to put up a title that screams Western, followed by a riff of traditional western music. None of this is even remotely reminiscent of Avatar. There's no focus on the "gone for 100 years" aspect and the Magic that the Nomad possesses could not be any more different from Bending if it tried.
We get our second promotional video and again absolutely no traces of Avatar: The Last Airbender. No mention is made of the 100 years thing, or that the Nomad is hunted or anything else Avatar related. Its just a desert wasteland and western music that further emphasizes and establishes the Wild West setting, along with a mysterious main character walking towards the camera with the sun to his back, a clear allusion to (and parody of) the Western cliche of beginning with a lone wandering main character appearing out of the sunrise at the start of the story and then disappearing into the sunset at the end.
Third promotional video. Again no references to the 100 years thing or to the nomad being hunted. And the focus is not on Toth or the Nomad but instead on Skout who bears no to any character from the Avatar universe. And again we see a return of the mascot rocks which again resemble Studio Ghibli critters more than anything, or mascot critters from a Disney movie. Also the clear comedic tone of the whole encounter and by extension the Nomad's magic does not exactly fit in with Avatar either, bending was always presented very seriously and had a clear spiritual and martial theme while the Nomad's magic is presented more as a neat magic trick not meant to be taken too seriously. And again there's a focus on keeping the main character's identity mysterious while Avatar just dropped it right into the opening.
Aside from that the only notable advertisements of the show has been the character introduction posters of Skout and Toth. And yeah Toth looks like she could have jumped straight out of the avatarverse and has a similar goal to Zuko but Skout's looks and personality bears absolutely no similarity towards any AtLA character.
So aside from one character that only appears on a single poster and a main character that is magical and hunted there's no emphasis on anything related to Avatar: The Last Airbender. Hell even the fact that the Nomad has been gone for 100 years is only revealed on a forum post on Rooster Teeth's website and there:
It's a western/fantasy mash-up about a mysterious nomad traversing a western wasteland that hasn't seen magic in 100 years.
its not "The Nomad has been gone for 100 years" but instead "Magic has been gone for 100 years" which doesn't exactly mesh well with Avatar where like one out of ten people minimum have magical powers.
So I'm curious what kind of advertisements you've seen where the "main character has been gone for 100 years" aspect or other Avatar-like stuff was so intrusive that it blocked out everything else. Because from what I've seen the focus has been on the Wild West setting, the concept of a main character with a massive bounty on his head (I've seen a lot of Trigun comparisons) and that only Nomad possesses magic and is mysterious. Also Skout is adorable.
Yes I did, you refused, I then conceded that it was probably a good idea to avoid dragging in drama from other threads. That's not a trap, that's just both of us acknowledging the obvious fact that you're biased as hell and are basing your complaints not on general trends from the company or previous work made by the director Jordan Cwierz but instead a completely unrelated show that you love to hate.
The demand for a citation was because theoretically you could have had valid cause for your accusations, perhaps you knew something about Mr Cwierz that I did not, or you had proof that Camp Camp was in fact clearly plagiarism of some obscure 80's show that I hadn't seen. But to be honest I was not really expecting that to be the case. So on second thought I guess you could call it a trap, in the sense that when demanding you to put up or shut up I fully expected that you would not be able to put up.
But seriously I'm getting a stronger Trigun vibe than anything else. If more cute girl content is added, I could see myself watching this instead of just rewatching Trigun.
But seriously I'm getting a stronger Trigun vibe than anything else. If more cute girl content is added, I could see myself watching this instead of just rewatching Trigun.
That was considerably more enjoyable than I expected.
The Avatar-isms were irritating (I definitely sighed when the bounty that they were after turned out to be a good guy), but the elements were sufficiently rearranged and combined with enough other material that they didn't bother me so much by the end. The Nomad himself was definitely the show stealer, both due to his memorable powers and appearance, and because of the good handling of a silent character whose body language and expressions could be both cartoonishly silly and touchingly serious when needed.
That said, the other characters...I dunno. Maybe with future episodes explaining the context a little better they won't bother me as much. But Skout doesn't seem to have any actual reason to be part of the expedition, and her cute naivete I feel goes a little too far into having her come off as actually stupid (a mistake that I've seen RT make before). I was also beginning to fear the dreaded passive protagonist, but fortunately she became a real actor in the plot by the episode's end. Toth, meanwhile, still doesn't have much to her besides "Toph's character design with Zuko's personality and role," but hopefully we'll see more to her in future episodes. The rest of the soldiers were just comic relief, and they did manage to be funny once in a while, but I'd say about 70% of the jokes just failed.
There was a thematic thing I liked, with Skout's relationship with the Nomad and ability to appreciate his magic and the natural world that he seems connected to coinciding with the destruction of her guidebooks. Its a pretty nice visualization of her throwing out her prescriptive view of the world and letting her mind be opened. The metaphor does suffer a bit from her using those same guidebooks to one-up her more boorish colleagues earlier in the episode (is her preexisting "knowledge" supposed to be a good thing, or not?) but it still mostly worked.
One thing I will have to just straightforwardly denounce though is the animation. RoosterTeeth, you're not some tiny group of struggling amateurs anymore. You can do better than this.
So, while it is flawed, I'm invested enough to at least watch the next couple eps and see where they go with it.
I watched the first episode and my general feeling was well that is a plot that exists with the most generic of Toon Boom looking animation. There where a few interesting ideas but everything was wrapped in so many layers of generic I don't think I am going to watch episode 2.
The episode has some rough spots in places both in terms of the characters/plot and the animation. The animation in particular could stand to see some improvement, especially the action parts. However Camp Camp also took a while to hit its stride so I'm optimistic about the odds of things improving as the series moves along and the crew gains experience.
The animation might have rough spots but the soundtrack is great. They're really making great use of the Wild West setting for some appropriate and fantastic music.
I've seen a lot of people compare Toth to Zuko but honestly she reminds me more of Captain Ahab or Inspector Javert if anything. Her beef with the Nomad seems to be less about wanting to prove herself to someone and more about her misguided belief that the Nomad is a terrible person that must be apprehended at all costs. She's not the most interesting character at the moment but I see a lot of potential for both serious and comedic scenes once she gets fleshed out a bit more. That "special" knife though...
Skout is adorable and must be protected at all costs... Preferably by Toth's big strong arms and ok I'm totally shipping them. But can you really blame me? Really? While she serves well as comedic relief I also like the more emotional scenes where her lack of self-esteem causes her to put herself down. Credits to Elizabeth Maxwell's delivery of the "such a dunderhead" line. With the way she keeps repeating it and seems to have internalized it so heavily I wonder if someone (possibly her parents) kept putting her down long enough that she started to believe it. I doubt anyone in the Dandy Lions did it since their insults seem to be more about her physical capability and courage than about intelligence, and no way could I imagine Toth putting her down.
The Nomad is far more adorable than I expected him to be. I like the use of muteness and the use of gestures, sound effects and creative applications of rock creatures to compensate for his inability to communicate. Also since a important part of the show seems to be about the mystery surrounding the Nomad making him mute was a great way to justify the air of mystery. If anyone ever asks him what his deal is he literally can't tell them. I also like how specific yet still useful his power is and I kind of hope that giving life to objects is his only real power. I'd rather see him find creative ways to apply that power than to just pull new abilities out his ass to solve problems like a Silver Age Superman. I'm curious about what the deal is with the glowing chest thing. Maybe the Nomad actually was evil in the past and he was cursed with muteness/a lack of identity/magic/all of the above and needs to commit X number of good deeds to be redeemed or something? Also I really liked how they made it clear that no the Nomad has not been frozen in ice for 100 years nor has he been flung into the future or anything like that, he has actually been living by himself completely isolated for an entire century and as a result he is utterly desperate for companionship. I also liked the moment where Skout fails to recognize the Nomad because people's prejudice against him has literally painted a picture of him that's so far off base that its completely unrecognizable from the real thing.
I frigging love the Dandy Lions. They're a goldmine for comedic quotes and its only been one episode. Jethro in particular since Ryan's southern accent makes everything he says sound ten times funnier. His delivery of the "ahh concur" line had me in stitches. Also "No amount of trickery or magic is going to save you!" "Aaahh! Trickery and magic!"
Red Manuel is intriguing, he's decentish comedic relief and works passably well as a antagonistic force for both the Nomad and Toth+Skout. However I wonder if he's going to be a pure villain or if he's going to get a redemption moment in the future where he stops being an ass gets the chance to actually be awesome in the process. This is the sort of lighthearted show where I could see something like that happening.
Rock creatures are perfection, no one can convince me otherwise:
There was a thematic thing I liked, with Skout's relationship with the Nomad and ability to appreciate his magic and the natural world that he seems connected to coinciding with the destruction of her guidebooks. Its a pretty nice visualization of her throwing out her prescriptive view of the world and letting her mind be opened. The metaphor does suffer a bit from her using those same guidebooks to one-up her more boorish colleagues earlier in the episode (is her preexisting "knowledge" supposed to be a good thing, or not?) but it still mostly worked.
I'd say that while having an open mind is important that doesn't mean that you should throw away everything you've learned either. Books don't have the answer to every problem and often you will need to use your own judgement instead of relying on guidebooks written by other people. However knowledge is still useful and a poisonous plant is still a poisonous plant no matter how open your mind is. Also while Skout was to reliant on her books Red Manuel is shown to revel in his own ignorance, neither appreciating magic nor knowledge.
Edit:
Some fanart paying tribute to Elizabeth Maxwell:
It still weirds me out to think that Winter and Nikki/Skout are voiced by the same person. Nikki and Skout? Sure, that's super obvious. But Winter? Now that's some impressive range.
Red vs. Blue was a pretty entertaining comedy machina honestly (at least the bits I watched). And Camp Camp got good reviews. RWBY is a kind of weird blip in quality, and something that I attribute mostly to a bunch of writers who mostly wrote adult humor now trying to hack out a children's show and using anime as a framework to build on of all things.
I guess it's a Michael Bay type situation where they're more than capable of making good works, but for whatever reason, they're terrible one ends up the most popular.
So while the story and characters are at least a bit endearing the comedy mostly falls flat, and the animation is so bland and lifeless it actually gets hard to watch all the way through.
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