Current watches

[Grahf]

I'm unfortunately beginning to think that I was so eager to see an animated adaptation that I overlooked a lot of the flaws. sigh

Still on my watchlist though. I suppose that given the amount of shows I actually do watch that I should at least have something on it.

[Empyrean]

As much as it didn't live up to the manga so far, it's still got good voice acting. Maybe I just like pretending it's Lawrence and Horo talking economics again.

[Grahf]

Episode two came out, covering all of chapter two and some of chapter three.

Spoiler: ShowHide

No useless meat references. What in the NINE FULL BLOODED FIERY HELLS PEOPLE! I am disappoint. Also it looks like they're going to be using that lantern a lot in the anime to explain the stuff that was covered in the manga. I wish that it weren't that way, but I guess they were against just having it placed straightforwardly?

Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai also started its second season. It's definitely more of a guilty pleasure than anything else though, given that the premise that it's people with personalities so absurd that they can only find camaraderie among other equally absurd people. Notice I didn't say friendship, because so far I wouldn't qualify what any of the characters in that show have as nearly that much sometimes. Yeesh.

Also considering watching JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, but I haven't even found time to look at the first episode. Probably should soon. Anyone here actually watching that?

[Dracos]

Not yet, but it's come up a few times in discussion.  Guess I should track it down.

[Kt3]

I really need to finish watching Part 1 of JoJo's.  I really do enjoy it, I'm just a lazy slacker when it comes to watching anime.

I really do love JoJo's.  As an anime adaptation, it is superb.  It has its own style which may take some getting used to after the brightly colored conflagrations that are modern anime.  It's also more gorey than most things I've seen in a long time.  But it's still very charming and thrilling.

[Grahf]

I actually watched the first three episodes today. I haven't read the manga, but I think it's interesting that once in a while they look like they're doing a panel effect, like a sound effect being written on the screen instead of actually happening, stuff like that.

[Dracos]

I haven't seen the new anime, but it really always struck me as something that was a barely readable mess without color.  The longest running terrible manga~.

[Grahf]

Finished the first story arc of Jojo. I have to admit though that since I didn't look at the voice cast I was quite surprised come episode ten.

Spoiler: ShowHide

You've become a manly man, Kyon.

I have to agree about the manga though. Sometimes it's even been hard to tell the difference between characters, given that every man in the series is a meatfridge.

[Dracos]

You say every man, as if that changes all that much when they have female leads or primary cast.

[Brian]

Watched Origin Spirits of the Past, because my media server was acting up and I needed to fine-tune it.  So I finally got the media server working right, and needed to stream for about an hour to see if any stuttering issues developed, or so forth.

Well, that's why I watched the entire thing, anyway.

These things are good:

Production value, character design, music.

The rest of it is just....  Incomplete, is the feeling I get.  There's a few mildly jarring moments of inconsistency, and the entire setting seems to be placed in some bizarre multi-dimensional anomaly, such that all points in space must be traversed to reach your destination at any time.  But there's so much that's there and -- to my mind -- inadequately explored or explained.

It feels like someone tried to fuse Castle in the Sky and James Cameron's movie about the Smurfs Avatar into one film ... though I think this project predates one of those two.  I think I liked the theme of the story, but the execution absolutely felt lacking.  On the whole, the best I can say about it was that it was pretty, and in some ways, adequate.

I dunno.  I don't think I can much recommend it.  If you've got it, it's short, so watch it.  If you don't got it ... I wouldn't bother getting it.

[Brian]

I watched a Korean animation titled The House, which was evidently about a girl who became able to see the spirits of homes.

It was ... depressing.  Not in the sort of Grave of the Fireflies, "We can learn from this," sense, but more of a, "Feel bad for the sake of feeling bad," sense.  The animation quality was also really odd, since the backgrounds were almost entirely film shots, or came across like photographs of miniatures in a set.

I get the sense that the work was actually political in nature, and commentary about something that happened in Korea, but even then, it's so disjointed and ... lacking in purpose, I can't really come up with anything positive to say about it.  I try and get exposure to new cultures and am always interested in seeing the animation produced by other countries than the ones I'm familiar with, but The House is a definite miss.

[Dracos]

Almost everything I end up seeing of korean origin just seems to speak to immature media industries.  In comics, films, tv shows, whatever.  It always feels like their ape'ing someone else's shtick without really grasping it, rather than having a clear voice and story to tell.  Or that the elements are just disjointed.

I never see any simple concise tales that feel like they had some purpose or arc to them, and when they get close, usually the delivery mechanism (art usually) is a weird mess.

I'm kind of glad when I quit when the self-absorbed protagonist was crushing over the house (apartment complex really) held by a cardboard cut-out in front of a real estate office.  Sure, both characters were drunk out of their gourd, but it felt like the film had spent almost the whole time putting the protagonist down, and when not, placing her as a self-absorbed shallow bitch in an awkward situation.  Combining them didn't win any favors.

[Kt3]

A lot of modern korean media comment may feel like their aping (sp?) someone else, and I think it may have to do with the state of their culture as a whole.

(excessive weasel words employed as I am not too read up on this subject)

I remember reading a bit a while ago about foreign english teachers in korea, reading their weblogs and such.  From how the kids act, and from how disjointed their pop media is, and from chatting a bit with a friend who teaches english in korea, it just seems like a vast majority of pop culture, that is, things that are popular, has been imported, and that they have yet to take that culture and truly make it their own.

tl;dr I'm basically repeating what Dracos said, but Korean culture has seemed fragmented for a while to me, made of many individual pieces that have yet to blend together yet. 

Which is the technical definition of being "immature" as they have yet to make it their own.  Oh well!

On another note,  Part 2 JoJo is the best JoJo.

[Brian]

Finally finished watching Dennou Coil.  Not what I'd expected, but the end was very good.

Was hoping for more of a commentary about how AR would affect our lives and such, but still a fun anime with ... the happiest ending it could really have.  Only thing I didn't like was a very late plot twist about ... well.  I won't ruin it.  I enjoyed it despite some issues with

Spoiler: ShowHide

the 'bad guy'.  The story didn't really need that

.

It also probably got between five and six more episodes than it honestly needed, hence some of the episodes were really filler -- but I chalk that up to contracted season length.

[thepanda]

ICBM filler was hilarious, though.