Current watches

[Arakawa]

I am watching Legend of Korra, which is that thing that comes after Avatar: the Last Airbender and is set in this alternate-universe pseudo-1920s Asian New York (= Hong Kong?) lookalike.

My first thought is that calling it a Legend is kind of inapt, so far, relative to the first Avatar series. Airbender was actually a kind of high-fantasy legend, even with its goofy or lighthearted moments.

Spoiler: ShowHide

Korra feels more like... a deconstruction on top of a noir on top of a shonen kinda thing (complete with tournament arc). The 'deconstruction' part comes from the fact that instead of the heroes in Airbender rising to the occasion about as well as you could expect someone in their situation to (and exceeding expectations in some ways), we have an exhibition of just how many screwups an overconfident rookie Avatar can get into if she's been sheltered in a compound for most of her life so she doesn't have a good idea of what her limitations are.

The first six episodes quickly fall into a pattern along the lines of "Korra rushes in somewhere overconfidently; Tenzin makes Exasperated Face; things avoid going to hell due to sheer luck, because someone is there to bail her out, or because Creepy Mask Guy is feeling generous today".

Though, I am continuing to watch, because it is entertaining, and I am a sucker for snazzy-looking settings. Hopefully there will be some character development for this Avatar.

[Arakawa]

Season 2 of Korra is much better so far. It's a shame you have to watch Season 1 to get to it....

(The Howard Hughes character is a riot.)

(Though really, does Season 1 introduce much that is essential to understanding the later stuff? I'm getting the sense you could easily just skip it.)

[KaiserTNight]

So I just watched the first episode of Space Dandy... its different, if you have the time check it out.

[Arakawa]

Heard Wakfu being discussed, which is supposedly a French anime that's pretty big lately, so I found a random scene out of a random episode (late in the series, I guess?) to get a sense of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMwhcYfBdak

(spoilers, I guess, though I don't have the context to be spoiled about anything)

This kind of reminds me of the Goku vs. Frieza fight in Dragonball Z, except way more over the top. Probably going to save actually watching the series for later.

It seems like not a very deep series, but with good (if perhaps a bit more stylized than I'm used to) art... for whatever reason I really like the design of the guy who looks like Syndrome from Pixar's The Incredibles.

[alethiophile]

Just recently watched Steamboy. It was pretty fun. Very pretty graphics. Story is kind of off to one side, but I feel that awesome renders of enormous improbable steampunk constructs are worth it.

[Dracos]

Watching Kill La Kill slowly, but also doing a go through of well...  Ghost in the shell SAC.  Was doing one with Brian before shit went down.

I sponsored Wakfu.  I'll see how that is.

[Arakawa]

Got to see The Wind Rises in a subtitled format.

It's not quite Grave of the Fireflies level bitterness, but getting close to that. Being, in the bottom line, a movie about a true artist trying to turn his ultimate dream into a solid reality...

Spoiler: ShowHide

which will then be used to kill untold numbers of people

.

Well, but the long-distance friends thing with Caproni was quite striking. I wonder who Miyazaki dreams about.

Also, there was supposedly politics.

Spoiler: ShowHide

Some overly patriotic American critics thought it was whitewashing Japanese atrocities i.e. they thought it was too pro-war, some overly patriotic Japanese critics thought it was too anti-war. a.k.a. overall, just people being stupid. Clearly, the movie displays reality, and everyone has their own completely opposite reasons to hate it.

[thepanda]

Magi's second season just ended. That ending was so bad I don't know if I want a season 3. It took all of four episodes to destroy an otherwise good run.

[Ergoemos]

Magi's second season just ended. That ending was so bad I don't know if I want a season 3. It took all of four episodes to destroy an otherwise good run.

Fiance and I got about halfway through the second season and just sort of stopped, since we had caught up and the single episode a week really didn't keep our interest.

Watching Kill La Kill slowly, but also doing a go through of well...  Ghost in the shell SAC.  Was doing one with Brian before shit went down.

We both enjoyed Kill la Kill together, however. Funny that I got tired of the transformation sequences faster than she did. Otherwise, I thought it was great. High energy and very enjoyable. I think the most resounding criticism I heard and agreed with was that Ryuko was almost a flat character compared to a lot of the depth behind the others in the show. I loved it all and won't pretend I expected some of the twists that showed up.

[Dracos]

Magi's second season just ended. That ending was so bad I don't know if I want a season 3. It took all of four episodes to destroy an otherwise good run.

Huh, surprising.  Magi's first season was pretty weak, so I didn't go hunt that it had a second.

[thepanda]

Been watching Infinite Stratos season 2 and Kyokai no Kanata.

I remember liking the first season of IS in a guilty pleasures kind of way. Unfortunately, the second season doesn't live up to the first. I'm halfway through and they've already added two more girls to the harem. He ended the last season with five. The season is only twelve episodes long so the returning characters get no character development and are often pushed out of focus for the new girls.

They tried to add a plot to this season but it isn't any good. The main character is now apparently a really shitty pilot and also terrorist groups have awesome mechs and stuff? Which conflicts with the world-building they'd done around the IS units in the first season and bleh.

KnK, on the other hand, was actually pretty good. Kyoto Animation was on point with this one. Likable characters, snappy dialogue, a plot that didn't make me want to bang my head against a wall, and some really fluid animation in and out of battle;where I've tried to get through IS2 for over a month, I blew through KnK in six hours.

Consider Kyokai no Kanata recommended.

[Dracos]

I think I read a bit of the Kyokai no Kanata manga, but didn't really get into it.  Maybe I'll give the anime a swing.  The youma souls as money thing felt weird to me though.

Finished Kill La Kill recently.  Some fun stuff, but it felt in lots of places like it was trying to be Gurren Lagann and not really managing it.  The ending felt strange and artificial, and sort of failed to address where a large portion of humans ended up without life-threads in their clothes (to need them added back in later as the evil plot) and

Spoiler: ShowHide

why they all got killed off at the end?  Numerous times through the series it was implied that small usage was symbiotic and helpful.

[thepanda]

Kyoto made K-on watchable, so it wouldn't surprise me if it was better animated.

[Arakawa]

The MLP season 4 finale takes on the style of... Dragonball Z?

'kay.......

_{(And the Pony equivalent of Super Saiyan form skips SSJI and goes right up to SSJIV levels of ridiculous looking.)}

[Muphrid]

KnK, on the other hand, was actually pretty good. Kyoto Animation was on point with this one. Likable characters, snappy dialogue, a plot that didn't make me want to bang my head against a wall, and some really fluid animation in and out of battle;where I've tried to get through IS2 for over a month, I blew through KnK in six hours.

Consider Kyokai no Kanata recommended.

I dunno.  I agree with good dialogue and gorgeous animation, but the twist that X was actually working for Y felt tacked on.  Or rather, I would've preferred to be in on it the whole time and see X struggle with it.  I think things didn't really have good momentum until that revelation.

Character of Sakura also felt tacked on (not a surprise; I don't think she played this role in the novel, from what I heard).  We never even scratched what Miroku was trying to do.

Maybe it's just the way the genre is usually done, but I felt there was too much emphasis on throwing twists and surprises at us, and not enough on character development.  It's hard to appreciate characters' decisions when the footing you'd use to judge them can be so easily thrown out from under you.

Mitsuki's awesome, though.   I might consider watching a second season just for her.  Kuriyama and Akihito just felt lacking in chemistry by comparison.