Current watches

[Kt3]

I haven't been able to download and watch anything lately.  Busy busy busy.  If I do get the chance, however, I'm going to get (and watch) Carnival Phantasm.

Anyone have a listing as to the current batch of shows?  I haven't really looked at what's going on right now.

[Uldihaa]

Rinne no Lagrange I already mentioned in my last post. All I'll add is that there is definitely something going on; something that has the potential to be pretty grim, or that's what implied about the "legend" of the Vox units.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear: Looks to be taking a few pages from Puella Magica i.e. characters die, on camera. It also borrows it's bad guys from the Xenosaga games, the "Noise" are Gnosis in all but name. One cool aspect is that the magi-mecha girls sing while fighting. So far, it's been really interesting, if a bit on the dark side.

Moretsu Pirates/Bodacious Space Pirates: A show with an extremely misleading title! A high school student, in love with flying and space, is informed that she is the only offspring of a now-dead pirate (or rather privateer) and can inherit his ship and Letter of Marquis. She finds out that her mother was once a space-pirate herself, and is still shockingly well armed ;). This leaves her with a decision: Accept her inheritance and become a space pirate, or leave it be and let the Letter expire. This has very little 'fanservice' but a whole lot of careful pacing and character establishment. This is a show taking it's time, thank you very much. And by "take it's time", I really mean that. Three episodes in and she still hasn't made her decision. Some nice hints of some "hard sci-fi" (or at least a firm nod in that direction). I'm really liking it so far, but the slow pace isn't for everyone.

Inu x Boku SS: Tsundere-daughter of a powerful and old family decides to live in a very 'unique' apartment complex for the elite; these tenants all have one common connection that has nothing to do with wealth. She arrives to find a very dedicated bishonen (with sparkles!) bodyguard/butler. She just wants space in order to try to overcome her "bad habit ( her tsundere reactions)", he just wants to serve the girl that once saved his life. Hilarity ensues, but with hints that there are some Bad Things in the background. Very odd. It's hard to get a grip on this. It freely mixes shonen and shoujo tropes, like those sparkles mentioned earlier; they're black. I'm enjoying the odd mix. I'm never really sure where it's going, but I'm content to follow along to find out.

Kill Me Baby/Baby, Please Kill Me: Slap-stick gag series of a teenage assassin and her ditzy "friend" attending high school. And by "slap-stick", we mean the ditz getting her wrist broke regularly (as in everyday). It's a gag series, so take nothing serious, ever. The ninja is pretty funny though. I like it, but I caution I grew up on Loony Toons, so this level of slap-stick is something I'm used to.

Aquarion EVOL: Sequel to Aquarion, obviously. But set 12 thousand years later. Mecha show that mixes Super-Robot and Real Robot with a unique combining system that has... implications and effects on it's pilots that might be hard to explain to an 8 year old. It's interesting in how they're trying to simulate what mimetic drift might do to Aquarion's story; answer: the legend causes some very strange ideas and beliefs to grow and flourish. Good so far, with a clearly very high budget. First episode is actually the first and second combined into one.

That's what I'm following of the Winter-started anime. I'm also continuing Persona 4 and Last Exile~Fam, the Silver Wing. I'm also looking forward to the 8 episode Black★Rock Shooter that's supposed to start soon.

Here's a website, with previews. Might be slow and clunky to load.

[Kt3]

Thermae Romae and Kyousogiga look interesting.  Given either of those a shot yet?

[Uldihaa]

I haven't seen Thermae Romae.

I have watched Kyousogiga. It's based on Through the Looking Glass, though it's an extremely loose association. Pretty much just the "girl chases black rabbit into crazy alternate world" theme, without the whole "chasing" part. The story opens with Koto and her brothers already in the alt-world Kyoto. It's wonderfully surreal, frenetic, chaotic, funny, exhausting, confusing, amusing, nonsensically sensible, mish-mashy animated fun. And is apparently a one-shot story. So yeah, it's good.

[Brian]

Seto no Hayame.  I realize I'm years behind the times, but damn--  That is one funny series!

[Kt3]

If you find yourself in the mood for more comedic shows, I'd be more than happy to throw some recs your way, if you haven't watched them already that is.

And yes, Seta was a very, very funny show.

re: Kyousogiga
Sounds like my kind of show.  I'll give it a shot when/if I ever have free time.  Free time to download it, that is.

[Merc]

Not anime, but started watching Kamen Rider Fourze.

The suit still looks horrible to me (it was in fact the reason I initially skipped over the series), but the actual series is kind of amusing, it's kamen rider + high school story + friendship is magic all in one setting. You'd think that'd be horrible, but the series pulls it off (so far) and I'm having fun. The characters/script writers are also clearly having fun, making no apologies for the abundant cliches. Even though there's a dark story there in the background, it's very well balanced with the lighter side of the show.

I do find myself wondering though, given that the protagonist is REGULARLY seen transforming or being helped by his friends, why don't the bad guys just -follow- them to the secret hideout portal and trash it? They clearly know who Fourze is and who's the brain behind Fourze. It can't be hard! Might happen later since I'm only on ep 5, but then again given the campy nature of the show, it might not, possibly being something that you're just expected to ignore.

Also, have to say that the transformation sequence is neat and makes me so nostalgic for the Power Rangers in Space opening song. I love that countdown so damn much.

I do vastly prefer Gokaiger overall, but that's about to come to an end sadly though, and the next season of super sentai isn't grabbing me much (those helper robot friends/mecha! So HORRIBLE! WHY?!? WHY MAKE THEM?!? >_<), so it's nice to have a series that's only about halfway through to look forward to.

[Uldihaa]

Moretsu Space Pirates/Bodacious Space Pirates:

I'm really, really enjoying this slow-paced anime. It's a sci-fi space-pirate story, not a space-opera. The science shown far is surprisingly accurate (for the most part). The design of the Odette II is precisely what I'd expect from a ship that doesn't have any kind of artificial gravity. It's got the coolest solar sails for fuel-less cruising, and there's even an EVA scene involved in fixing a mast that's gotten tangled. The use of transponders to identify ships, and that pirates would turn theirs off, was a bit surprising since most anime sci-fi ignores it. The limits of radar and the way a ship could "hide" in space by being between the sun and the radar antennae is completely true to science. The sun's output makes scanning radar useless, and would drown out a ship's active emissions. It also mentions "planetary shadows" being a good place to hide a ship for an ambush. It's even right about un-powered re-entry glide paths in the first episode. It even points out that cyberwarfare is more about pre-planning defenses rather than trying to go head-to-head in real-time. They also demonstrate a nice bit of cyber-chicanery by creating a virtual system. They might have "prettied up" an active radar pulse scan, but that was just a nice bit of visual eyecandy.

And speaking of eye-candy, I want the Odette II. That is one very pretty ship, and fully deserves the name Odette.

Not anime, but started watching Kamen Rider Fourze.

I have to admit to liking this show. Yeah, it's still cheesy but somehow the cheese works. It's enjoyably campy. Maybe it's because the Main Character would fit right in on just about any hot-blooded anime series? The guy's a walking cliche, and fells absolutely no shame or embarrassment about it. You have admire that kind of guts.

[thepanda]

Merc, how is it compared to OOOs?

[Merc]

Can't comment, Panda, sorry. :(

I've actually not watched OOOs, heck not watched kamen rider in -ages- (like, 5+ years).

Midnight (or maybe Uldihaa since he commented about Fourze) would be better people to ask.

[Merc]

Hahahaha, just watched episode 16. Kamen Rider Meteor introduced. Fights like Bruce Lee and smashes planets into enemies. So ridiculous, yet awesome.

[Arakawa]

Went to see 'Arrietty'. Somehow in spite of it being Studio Ghibli, I had trouble working up the enthusiasm to see this one in theaters. Spending so much time following the sordid details of the Ghibli succession crisis may have something to do about it, but, that aside, I have to say it turned out... alright? The newbie director's work felt very timid, and Miyazaki's screenplay confined itself to basically a very straightforward rendition of the Borrowers story. Most of the really cool stuff about the movie is basically detail work in the background.

Arrietty makes Stock Ghibli Frowny/Scared/Battle Face #2 (o︹o) so often you could turn it into a drinking game.

There were some platitudes being thrown around which were probably mangled hideously by the Disney dub. (Disney also gave all of the beans Western names... except, for some completely random reason, the "I'm an arbitrarily disgruntled old lady who's here to drive the plot and stuff" gardener, who got to keep her Japanese name.) For that reason and the fact that the unstoppable power of the Ghibli animation machine was left to sort of lie fallow without correspondingly deep storytelling, this is definitely a "you won't miss anything if you skip the theatrical release and stick to subs" kind of movie.

Do make sure to use a real sound system if you decide to watch it. Celtic harp music!

The most unexpected thing about going to see the film was the audience. I'd have thought the target audience for this would be on average just slightly older than the toddlers who were actually being brought to see it!

[Brian]

Nice to see my expectations were evidently right on the mark.

Also, deduced it was 'Ghibli does "the Borrowers"' from a snippet in the summary while Hal was in town and we considered going to see it.  First time any crowd I was happy to be part of unanimously said, "Let's not see the Ghibli film that's in theaters."

Oh, well; they can't all be Castle in the Sky/Spirited Away.

[Arakawa]

I think the primary reason for them to make the movie was that they needed to have some new director lined up besides the monumentally awkward Goro Miyazaki, not because that particular story urgently needed telling or anything. In that sense, it was a success, even though Yonebayashi's direction just radiated uncertainty. (Part of it could be due to the dub; when in doubt, blame Disney.)

I would definitely put the overall impression as far, far better than Earthsea (not enough adult supervision), or the extremely forgettable The Cat Returns (far, far too much adult supervision). It's nowhere near Whisper of the Heart, and by comparing it to that movie... it's evident with Cat Returns and Arrietty that the newer directors just don't get anywhere near the trust that Yoshifumi Kondo had.

<sub>(Nor, to be fair, do they have anywhere near the same amount of proven experience. Ever seen Kondo's demo rendition of the 'flying bed' scene from Little Nemo?

http://ghiblicon.blogspot.com/2006/06/nemo-pilot-1984.html

Hell yeeah.)</sub>

I'd peg Yonebayashi's effort at somewhere around Girl Through Leapt Through Time levels of interesting and leave it at that. That's still a jolly good first showing.

... and... judging by the choice of subject matter in their newbie films (here, Earthsea being the exception that proves the rule), Ghibli really do seem to be trying to follow in the path of Whisper of the Heart with their new directors, much more than Castle in the Sky or Spirited Away.

First time any crowd I was happy to be part of unanimously said, "Let's not see the Ghibli film that's in theaters."

That's only because Earthsea didn't get a theatrical release here :-)

Reminds me, now it's time to get hold of Kokuriko and see what the prodigal son's been up to.

[Dracos]

To my view?  Borrowers?  Never a particularly interesting concept.

Doing it well or poorly doesn't really help it.