Soulriders 5.0: Legend of the Unending Games

Currently glancing over Sora no Otohime, Super Robot Wars Inspectors, and Panty and Stocking this season.

Of those, P and S is most worth talking about.  It's crude, snappy, and kinda comes off as an american cartoon more in its crass nature.  Following a couple of horrific fallen angels and their daily ghost hunting job, I don't know if it will continue to be amusing, but is definitely worth a short watch.

Super Robot Wars, well, is off on an unimpressive trajectory.  Even as a fan of the game series, it's got the big problem that pretty much almost everyone isn't having any fun or energy with it.  It's mostly faithful, I suppose.  The original is pretty serious in the section they're covering, folks are frightened, people are dying, and hey that's what they got.  In fact, it is generally very faithful.  But really, with Excellen being the sole source of life in the group so far, it's about as hot-blooded as a fish.

Still watching SRW:Inspector.  Still okay, not great.

PS&G alternates from pretty good to pretty bad.  Unique, definitely.  Mainly though hasn't gone anywhere consistently with its premise.  A lot of just random bits on the premise.  Some very funny, some reasonably provoking around the setting, but largely not ever taking them anywhere and accepting crudeness for it.

HYOUGEMONO.
Now I just need more eps to come out.
Also on the list: Fractale, Patlabor TV, Slayers TRY.

Just finished .hack//Quantum. I'd Honestly prefer this new house and director over the old ones for future projects. Also also, I still love the .hack series. Need new HD .hack games.

Still watching SRW Inspectors.  (Hasn't finished it)

... .Hack is still like, out there?  Seriously?

Quote from: Dracos on May 27, 2011, 04:44:52 AM
Still watching SRW Inspectors.  (Hasn't finished it)

... .Hack is still like, out there?  Seriously?

Hah! Surprised me, too. Quantum is a done in 3 OAV. I swear there is more action and tension in these three episodes than there was in the last two tv series.

Guess I'll watch Gundam Unicorn and maybe marathon Kara no Kyoukai this weekend.

Nichijou is hands down the funniest thing I'm watching this season. If you haven't tried it yet you should get on that. You might want to skip episode 00, though. It has some pacing issues that the actual season doesn't have.

First two eps of Black Lagoon are pretty okay. I could honestly take it or leave it, but I felt the same thing about Cowboy Bebop, which led to me missing out on some awesome for quite a while. People assure me it gets really good later on. I hope they weren't lying.

I find the first two eps one of the stronger small chunks of it personally.

Just finished Dog Days and Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou.

Dog Days began interestingly enough, but god did it degenerate quickly. The last few episodes were so, so boring and dragged on so, so long. The tension was nonexistent, the animation was on the lower end of modern animation, and it was just plain mediocre all around. I liked the characters; I just think they deserved to be in a better show. Verdict: Pass on it.

Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou, on the other hand, was pretty good all around. Actually, it reminds me of Sora no Otoshimono with more and better fight scenes. The story moves quickly, the jokes mostly work, the voice acting is good, the fanservice isn't as in-your-face as Sora no Otoshimono, and the ending is satisfying. The animation is better than Dog Days which is sad because it is older than Dog Days. Where Dog Days was a chore to finish, Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou was a joy. Once I started I couldn't stop watching until the end. I wouldn't mind seeing an OAV for this.

Recently watched through Puella Magi Madoka.  Pretty neat, if dark.  Chomp!  Chomp Chomp! :3  Also, Sayuka is a complete self-righteous bitch.  That is all.

Anime marathon'd so...some others...let's see..

Jellyfish Princess - So much sugar.  A group of six girls who couldn't survive.  Also Manly Princess Crossdresser.  Too sugary for me to handle in large doses.

Nuriyan No Mago - Still sort of feel the manga is better, but much like the manga did, the anime started picking up steam after a bit.  Yuki-onna for the win.

Blue Exorcist - ah...animation quality was nice, and some parts of it were pretty neat...  but the 'younger' twin brother is a complete ass.  And the premise behind their relationship is pretty much a 'So we've all been lying to you for years and years for no good reason at all and treating you like it is all your fault.'  Pretty much the less he talks, the better the anime is.  I'll probably give it another try after giving a little more space, but seriously, the main character comes across as a saint next to SuperYoungerBrother.  "So, we've established one thing in this argument, even though I'm a horrible unspeakable monster and you're a Mary Sue, I am clearly the better person.  I learned I don't try and kill my own flesh and blood because he's an insufferable self-righteous jerk."

That said, they dump a lot on the main character.  So I might not.  It establishes him as more awesome by surviving it rather than lame, and clearly it's going to stop at some point...but it bugs me that he's basically taking responsibility for legitimate mistakes that, while he caused, are a natural side effect of years of deception.  "So we kept you in the dark about all this important stuff, so we could yell at you later about it."

YURIYURI IS BORING. gah

Just finished Pretty Cure DX3. Awesomesause.

"Eh?! P-Precures?"

"There's so many! What is going on?!"

"I greatly understand that sentiment."

The Second Law of Magical Girls: as the number of seasons in a Magical Girl show increases, the number of Magical Girls in the show also increases.

In Madoka,


(Am I being too zealous with my spoiler tags at this point?)

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 11, 2011, 09:41:05 PM
(Am I being too zealous with my spoiler tags at this point?)

Well, technically

Right, but that only happened after



EDIT: also, having watched it to the end, what was the deal with

Obviously,

Quote from: thepanda on September 11, 2011, 11:39:39 PM
Obviously,

Spoiler: ShowHide

 Magical Girl Anne Frank went out killing Natzi witches. Sadly, she wished for something mundane like food or for the allies to win the war or whatever. What she should have wished for was a giant, three-headed dragon. With nuclear breath weapons. That could fly. I'm just sayin'.

Well, if we were going on should:


I think a big part of the show is that

Quote from: Brian on September 12, 2011, 12:07:29 AM
Well, if we were going on should:

Spoiler: ShowHide

They should have wished for a source of infinite energy.

They HAVE that.

It's called

Also, don't forget that while Kyubei gets to

Fate/Zero

All I can say is THANK THE GODS UFOTABLE IS DOING THIS!

I don't think the nasuverse could handle another disaster.

Watching Fate/Zero and Persona 4.

And recently Boku no Tomodachi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W34TqtgI1s

It's kinda cute and deserves a link.  A bunch of misfits make a club about friendship.  Slice of life.

Anyone else watching Ben-to?

So

Damn

Funny

/me beats panda like a pinata (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkagpLGYAJo) until details come out.

I didn't want to describe it because there is no way to make this show not sound stupid.

Ok, Ben-to is a show about people battling for discount lunches. It has some of the best action scenes I've seen this season. There hasn't been an episode that I haven't laughed out loud watching. The characters are amusing, the Sega-pimping manages to surpass Code Gease in how blatant it is, and everything is 'serious business'.

I probably look forward to this each week as much as, if not more than, Fate/Zero.

I'm also watching working. The second season is more of the same. If you liked the first season watch it; if not, don't.

SUCH DESCRIPTION!  CASTIGATION!

But, no, really--  That's a trope, Panda, so don't worry about it too much (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BetterThanItSounds).  The way you describe it makes it sound hilarious, not stupid.  Obviously, not something to be taken seriously.

Sounds, actually, rather like the 'game' moments of Higurashi.  I, for one, will be giving this a shot based on your rec.

Also, when in doubt, you can completely get rid of my nagging by simply linking a page on some specific site (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Anime/Ben-To).

Seems like a good anime season. =)

Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon is a mess.  I'll leave it at that.

UN-GO is amazing.  I wish I could put down the reasons why I'm enjoying it so far, but I watched the first episode and I'm hooked.  I'd encourage you guys to give it the same treatment as well.  Supernatural detective-ing.

Boku Ha Tomodachi Ga Sukunai makes my eyes roll, but it's an amusing series and seems to overall focus on a theme of friendship, rather than lolharems.  I hope it'll end that way without encountering a theme shift, it'd be refreshing.

Mashiro Iro Symphony - slow and generic harem animu plagued with what I've dubbed "retard moe", those woeful girls who are afflicted with the closed-eyes-open-mouth syndrome.  Oh, and they're really dumb so they're somehow cute, I guess.  I didn't see anything particularly compelling about it in the first episode.   I'll probably drop it after a second episode just to make sure I'm not being too harsh.

Boku Ha Tomodachi Ga Sukunai is really, really, really strongely pitched at Otaku.  It's almost embarrassing to watch because of that.  It's still fun, but it would be easier to enjoy if it wasn't so extremely aware in its pitching.  "Yes, I see, opener with one guy and six girls, all of them showing off their figures and underwear as much as possible and all of them being very cute/awkward/desirable fetish girls, and look the busty one is an extreme video game otaku, who would've guessed?"

Fair to say.

However, with how many anime are being made with otaku as the intended audience... well, I think we'd be better off listing the shows that don't follow that trend.  It'd save us a lot of effort.

It's weird, but I almost think I'd enjoy it more (and it is enjoyable) if I hadn't watched its opening or ending ever.  The opening particularly pretty much transforms the context of what would be 'Slice of life with awkward people and a bit of harem overtones' into 'Our audience is only otaku.  Seriously, you could not show a non-otaku this without getting really strange looks.'

This is not the case for say Persona or Fate/Zero  or probably even Ben-to.  They're stories about strange things, where Boku communicates awareness that it's 'stories to strange people'.

Quote from: Dracos on November 22, 2011, 02:00:16 PM
It's weird, but I almost think I'd enjoy it more (and it is enjoyable) if I hadn't watched its opening or ending ever. 

You know, my computer slows down whenever the op or end play so I've just been skipping them the whole time. o_O

Quote from: thepanda on November 22, 2011, 03:56:08 PM
You know, my computer slows down whenever the op or end play so I've just been skipping them the whole time. o_O

Maybe your media player is getting a nosebleed from having to contemplate the contents of the OP/ED in intimate detail?

/me ducks in case the above remark merited a mallet to the head, labeled "Your Joke is Pointless".

Quote from: thepanda on November 22, 2011, 03:56:08 PM

Quote from: Dracos on November 22, 2011, 02:00:16 PM
It's weird, but I almost think I'd enjoy it more (and it is enjoyable) if I hadn't watched its opening or ending ever. 

You know, my computer slows down whenever the op or end play so I've just been skipping them the whole time. o_O

Fortunate! =P

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on November 22, 2011, 04:25:39 PM
Maybe your media player is getting a nosebleed from having to contemplate the contents of the OP/ED in intimate detail?

/me ducks in case the above remark merited a mallet to the head, labeled "Your Joke is Pointless".

Do processors dream of electric censorship?

And so did I begin to watch "Captain Tylor: The Most Irresponsible Man In Space", prompted by the recent roleplaying thing.

And it was pretty cool.

Oddly enough, I liked how the main character was voiced in the English dub much better. Properly laid-back, for a guy whose primary motivation to enlist in the army was to laze around all day on the bridge of a starship. Maybe a bit patronizing to the extent that you begin to question the fact that the uptight, hardworking army officers don't deck him in the face on a daily basis. Eh, whatever. The guy in the Japanese dub sounds to my ears too much like an earnest, motivated shonen hero.

Meh, I guess it's a pretty campy show, and a campy dub just works better with it. (Honourable mention: warmongering Ralgon advisor with English-dub voice that drips "look at me I am evil muahahahahaha".)

(Notably, in spite of this logic I liked both dubs of Ranma 1/2. Somehow, unlike Captain Tylor, the martial artists in the Japanese version of Ranma sounding all serious-like about Ridiculous Thingamabob of the Day just adds to the humour.)

Did you skip the OAVs? You should skip the OAVs.

There's OAVs? What OAVs?

Now watch Planetes, for more irresponsible people in space. :)

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on December 19, 2011, 02:36:52 PM
There's OAVs? What OAVs?

There are no OAVs.  Anyone who tells you differently is really trying to hurt you.

(The OAVs remove the 'camp' from Tylor, changing the rules and having everyone but tylor instantly adjust to it.  So it's sort of the flip.  Instead of tylor being a lazy wild peace-loving guy who really understands people in a way, he's now completely out of touch with the setup, and everyone is calling him on it.  I believe the first OAV ends with him being thrown into jail by the Raalgon princess.)

You know, I got almost the exact opposite out of watching them. I thought it had Tylor as a misunderstood genius hiding behind the slacker persona to hide his angst (where he goes off on the princess in the bath when she asks him about it?) Anyway, much like Nadesico, the TV series ended perfectly and you should ignore anything that came after it.

As for me, I finished both seasons of Gundam 00. A pretty series with good english dubbing that is perfectly watchable so long as you don't allow yourself to think about the plot AT ALL. This may be impossible if you've watched Gundam Wing before. It's the type of show that gets worse the more you think about it. I don't recommend it.

Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon:

A complete mess for the first four episodes; so much so I resorted to looking background info up on the internet. But after those four episodes, things finally 'click' and start to make sense. They really, really needed some kind of initial info dump for the first episodes. Something along the lines of, "In the far distant future, humans have explored the universe and discovered it's secrets; then it promptly broke at least one of them, Causality. Now it's stuck back home trying to literally rebuild it's own past. But that doesn't really matter right now. Right now, the Earth has been conquered  by one faction of the 'returning' humans, and tensions continue to build toward another conflict." Or at least that's what I understand is going on.

I do like the techno-magic system, and that the important characters are as uniquely designed as most main characters. It's also the only series that's truly surprised me at times, in a "I didn't see that coming" way.

While I've come to like it, it's really a YMMV series. If you don't mind doing a little research, I think it's well worth watching.

Carnival Phantasm:

It's the Nasu-verse on crack. OAV series with episodes no longer than 15 minutes or so. A pure gag series at it's best. This show had me laughing so hard I started honking like a goose. Nothing is sacred, all is made fun of.

From turning the Fifth Grail War into a game show to Berserker being sent on a shopping errand, to watching Arcuied try to make okonomiyaki, this show had me howling. They even manage to turn Caster into a love-sick Christmas Cake Woobie with a Saber fixation. Though more Fate/stay night, Tsukihime-Melty Blood gets some screen time. Even Sacchin!

They even reveal the Secret of the Ahoge. And a truly terrible secret it is.

You know, I just wrote all that when I could have just linked to the OP which will show what it's like (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV-DhU0gf9o). I do have to give a warning though: If you're not familiar with Type Moon's stories, particularly Fate/stay night and Tsukihime-Melty Blood, this series isn't for you. It's packed with in-jokes; as in 95% of the humor is based on knowing the characters and their pasts.
 

I dropped Horizon pretty quick.  Any spoiler-free reason why episode 4 is about where it gels together?  I may pick it up again, but I don't know.

Carnival Phantasm.  I must watch it.  Saw the OP for it a while ago, looked fun as hell.

Episode 4 is when they finally get going on the plot and move beyond showing the same span of time from multiple characters. I was seriously considering dropping the series at episode 3, but decided to give it one more shot; I tend to give a series 4 episodes before I drop them anyway, since the first DVD volume of a series has 4 episodes.

This is also the episode that reveals that this series really does deserve it's World of Badass (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WorldOfBadass) trope. You also realize that knowing all the character names isn't all that important right now. In other words, the series finally moves beyond random seeming vignettes of a bunch of characters to showing why they've been showing all these scenes and characters.


As for Carnival Phantasm... WATCH IT! You will not be disappointed.

Just finished watching all of UN-GO.  Holy balls did I enjoy that show.  It's a shame it doesn't seem to get more discussion.

I liked UN-GO, though it was a little rough at first. Inga and Kazamori made the series for me though. Those two together came across as perfect siblings, working together but still not hesitating to get one up on each other. Kazamori in particular really had a great "tone" to the character, both cute and creepy (and even squiky) in a way that made sense. Inga was just pure fun, in both forms.


Rinne no Lagrange (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Anime/RinneNoLagrange)

A new Winter anime. Scifi/Mecha with female protagonists. I like what I've seen so far, though many will undoubtedly be screaming Canon Sue (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CanonSue)*. I like Madoka's instantly accepting personality and eagerness to help others; her being kind of crazy prepared is a nice touch  too. I love that the ally alien has an understanding and appreciation for Earthing humor; and a willingness to play along. I'm going to continue following this.

I'll note that all the things she does well are completely physical.


*Off-toipic rant/tl;dr thoughts on Mary Sue.

A term I've come to despise, not because of what it is but due solely to the way it's been distorted and corrupted. It's become so distorted that people use it to describe the Main Character in his/her own story. I'm sorry, but that's simply impossible if you go back to the core definition: A character that usurps  the Main Characters in their own story; everything else was additional frills and refinements on how the Sue did the usurping. So that just begs the question: How the hell does the Main Character usurp him/herself in their own story? Answer: They can't. They can, however, be Boring Perfect Heroes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InvincibleHero) which shares most (if not all) of the refinements of the Sue but isn't an actual Sue.

In fact, the whole concept of Sue has come to mean "Character that can do two (or more) things well (or better than me) and that I('m jealous of) dislike". At this point, every time I see the term "Sue" used, I roll my eyes and think, "Envy is a terrible thing."

Also, too many "Sue" sub-types. I'm just waiting for the "Highschool-Student-Who-Works-In-A-Maid-Cafe Sue" to appear... [rant: Done]

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.

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 (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Anime/SenkiZesshouSymphogear): 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 (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/BodaciousSpacePirates): 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 (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Manga/InuXBokuSS?from=Anime.InuXBokuSS): 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 (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Manga/KillMeBaby): 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 (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Anime/AquarionEvol): 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 (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackRockShooter) that's supposed to start soon.

Here's a website, with previews (http://www.squidoo.com/anime-season-winter-2011-2012). Might be slow and clunky to load.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

QuoteNot 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.

Merc, how is it compared to OOOs?

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

Quote from: Brian on March 03, 2012, 08:39:03 PM
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.

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

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

Quote from: Dracos on March 04, 2012, 12:41:17 AM
To my view?  Borrowers?  Never a particularly interesting concept.

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

Think of it as Kiki's Delivery Service 2.0, then. That is, it's certainly not everyone's cup of tea, but much like Kiki the concept when you try to explain it to someone sounds about a gazillion times more boring than it actually is.

Watched Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters ep 1. First thing to say: the dance sequence at the start of the end credits was hilarious. Particularly watching the boss guy join in.

I haven't changed my opinion from what I said of this from the preview either: the sentai suits are neat, and I like the special effects, but god, those buddy robots just ruin the whole experience for me (they really, really do).

More comments after actually watching show:
The first monster of the day was pretty meh, though the mooks are pretty sharp appearance-wise. I like their design, purple suits and all.

I also got a kick out of the transformation sequence involving a shout of "It's Morphing Time!". It's a nice power rangers joke. The announcer guy for this series lacks the cheesy glory of the Gokaiger's announcer though. He just doesn't sound excited when he's used to call out attacks, or the appearance of new items.

Actually, the whole episode lacks the glory of Gokaiger, though it wasn't a bad episode 1 all things considered, and the high tech theme works well considering all the special effects being used (so much shiny metal!). There's a matrix vibe to the show too.

Still, not sure I'll stick with this series, I'll give it 3-4 more eps to try and reel me in (those robot buddies work against it fairly bad).

Oh lordy. I actually didn't realize until ep 3 that the whole show is a power rangers tribute/shout out. It took me that long to somehow catch onto the fact that the mechs (good guys' and bad guys') are called megazords. They were called that in eps 1-2 too, not sure how I missed it then.

Then immediately I caught onto other references that I hadn't realized were references like the fact that their transformation sequence involves sunglasses (Jungle Fury), characters have the 'civilian powers' (a lot of the disney era rangers had), evil computer virus unleashed becomes main villain (RPM)... *shakes head*

I've decided that I don't mind the red robot buddy. I still hate the blue and yellow ones though.

I keep feeling like Go-Buster Red's sister introduced him to the dreaded Neko-ken technique, except she used chickens instead of cats. Because how else does someone end up with a fear of -chickens-, honestly?

Quote
I keep feeling like Go-Buster Red's sister introduced him to the dreaded Neko-ken technique, except she used chickens instead of cats. Because how else does someone end up with a fear of -chickens-, honestly?

Roosters are mean little sons of b*s. I can totally see someone being attacked when they were young and carrying that over into adulthood. I have a cousin like that with geese.

Haiyore! Nyarlko-san (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/LightNovel/Nyarko-san) (Warning: TVTropes link)

A comedy. I can't describe more without loss of SAN(sanity). But I guess I'll have to. It's a bizarre fusion on Cthulhu Mythos, moe, and Lucky Star (-20 SAN). That's right, Call of Cthulhu has been moefied... and it's freaking funny (-20 SAN). Nyarlko (Nyarlathotep) is a Excel-level genki (alien) girl with a near-Excel-level motormouth(-20 SAN). It's been the best straight-up comedy I've seen this season. If you like Lucky Star, this show will be fun; if you wondered how the hell someone could moefy the Cthulhu Mythos, well here you go.

Just make sure you bring your luckiest SAN dice... you're going to need them. ;)

I am watching a fairly decent number of shows this season (read: more than one):

Nazo no Kanojou X
Dusk Maiden of Amnesia
Mine Fujiko's Oppai Exhibition Hour Mine Fujiko to iu Onna (New Lupin III)
Mouretsu Pirates

I am a few weeks behind on most but will be catching up tonight :3

Totally out of watching.

Still reading though. 

This is tangentially related to anime, in that most of the characters are from various anime, but isn't actually an anime. It's a PSP game celebrating Good Smile's 10th anniversary. I was reminded of it (not hard to do) when I read Brian's "Shuffle" Haruhi crack-fic. Specifically what happens to one character in particular.

Behold The Horror of the Cute (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHcqEQhPang&list=FLB56KhDx3FRsxv2WC0AuW_A&index=1&feature=plpp_video).

Also, why this is kinda sorta relevant (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYZ-KccbBBw). A.K.A 'Hnnnnngggggg! So cute!' 

Mikuru Beam is too cute.

And Illya has the scariest looking special in the game, apparently. o_O

That game is really cute.

Just got back from seeing a production of Les Miserables in the city.  I guess it's the current tour?

Liked:



• The performer who played Enjorlas (he was pretty good)
• The orchestra
• The performer who played Cosette (older)

Didn't like:



• Shouting when there should have been singing (I suspect this was the director's call, given the entire cast seemed to fall into it at some point)
• The audience applauding every single musical number
• The comedy being wedged in at every opportunity (how many dick jokes does Les Miserables need?  Outside of 'Master of the House', the answer is 'none')
• Some songs being cut, all songs being faster than I'm used to (no 'Little People'?  What the hell, guys!)

Not sure how to feel about:



• The amount of tech they put in.  They clearly had competent stagecraft teams, so why rely on a screen and digital projections so much?  Maybe just the fact that I worked in stagecraft and feel the love of the, er, craft, taking a backseat to the latest technical marvel....  I guess it wasn't awful -- it really did feel like it worked during the sewer sequence, but the rest I'm not sure on....

Anyway.  I'm being taken to see it again.  Hopefully it was just rough tonight because it was opening night.

My comment on the tech in Les Mis: It was a nice addition and very well done.  Without the tech, they usually just used black backdrops (If I'm remembering correctly) so the tech, while not necessary, added an interesting touch.

Also, from what I remember, they still used almost all of the original sets so the tech didn't cause them to remove anything that was in the original tour.

We saw different tours, though.  I think.  There are two simultaneous tours aren't there?

Edit: Yeah, doesn't appear the tour we saw has been to Canada....

It really bugs me just how much was cut.  Lots of scenes lost their impact due to missing elements earlier in the story or just strangely changing where the scene was held (Empty chairs and tables ...in the graveyard instead of the restaurant/bar?)

Also, the wedding scene was really off.

We didn't watch it in Canada, we watched the tour when it went through Lansing, MI.

I didn't notice any cutting, persay.  It's true, they had to do scenes differently because they were no longer using the rotating stage (I missed that the most, to be honest) and they did shorten a lot of scenes that were just action happening.

At any rate, while I do miss the original performance, the changes didn't bother me as much as they did you guys.  Ah well.

Watched some Bakamonotogari yesterday.  Maybe I even got the name right.  I'm about seven episodes in.

It is really cast narrow.  It has yet to have more than 3 people on the screen at a time.  And it's cast is very narrow otherwise.  Protagonist dude.  Old mentor.  Pile of teenage girls.  Not that I mind, but just kinda feels too obvious about it.

The Tsundere (More Yandere really) main female lead so far shows...character development.  This is kinda shocking in a tsundere.  She almost completely stopped with physical threats (Did one last ep just as I was commenting on the character growth sadly) and has even said she's sorry at points.  Compared to most crazy bitches, she actually has some violent backstory to deliver why she is a crazy bitch who doesn't trust people.

It's kinda cute.  Very slow paced.  Lots of talking.

I'll watch more.  but I'm still kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop, as they haven't progressed the metaplot much so far.

Where are you seeing dere?

She's totally yantsun.

Edit: No, but seriously, she hints at dere on occasion ... mostly with a strong yan influence. ;)

Now now.

We've both seen YanTsun.

That is not yantsun.

He hasn't lost a single body part.

Bakemonogatari

roughly meaning:
bakemono (monster) + monogatari (story)

You could maybe very roughly equate that to... 'monstory', or 'monstery'.

I know once I realized the pun, I could never forget how to spell that name again.

heh

Dog Days is still the best show this season.

Dog Days...

literally gives me a migraine when I try to watch it.

It's so stupid.

(Sword Art Online is pretty cool, though)

Edit:  To avoid a double-post, Joshiraku this season is pretty amazing.  It's a comedy based mostly on talking, but it uses the sound and animation effects very well to get the comedy across.  It is absolutely hilarious.  The group who's doing it is also doing a really good job on translation too, so there's not really much lost in translation, or at least the translation was well enough that word puns are translated.

Finished Bakemonogatari.  I'm not sure I'm 100% on the style.  When 10% of your animation budget is spent on a black panel with white text saying 'blank scene'....  I dunno.  I guess they were going for some existentialism or minimalism thing, but beyond that I saw a lot of the protagonist's reactions were recycled as well.

What little animation there was, was well done.  The story was kind of ... vague.  Interesting, but ultimately I found the 'metaplot' (as such) pretty lacking.  I found the character interactions mostly amusing, and it was kind of nice how they put in a different opening for each character (pretty much).  The fanservice was surprisingly blatant when they went that route (which was a surprising amount of the time), and....

Yeah.  Mostly a positive experience, just one that left me thinking it could have been a bit better.

Brian, Bakemonogatri -- TVRip or BDRip?

BD.

QuoteWhen 10% of your animation budget is spent on a black panel with white text saying 'blank scene'....  I dunno.  I guess they were going for some existentialism or minimalism thing

Naw, just Shaft being Shaft. They've been doing the kind of thing for a long time now. Madoka was a shocking break from the norm. (The weird stuff having a point more than just style) Pani Poni Dash, So Long Mr. Despair, Negima?!. even Hidamari Sketch was filled with it. And I loves me some Hidamari Sketch. New season, please. ^_^

It was interesting.  I'd mainly encountered the series before by fanfiction that takes for granted the lessons the main character is pushed: That Kai aren't people.  That their world isn't the same as our world.

I didn't think it'd have such a solid romance angle in it.  The main female lead is the Bitchiest ever but is less annoying being so than say Akane.  Psycho-posessive.  And fairly direct about it.  She kind of reminds me of a less over the edge Yuno Gasai.  "No, you can't let her kill you because otherwise I WILL kill her.  And you don't want to make me a murderer, do you?"  Tsundere Service.

The lead was both easily bullied...and not really spineless.  Definitely not cowardly.  Dense.  Whimsical and perverted, while hiding it.  But then the girls aren't any better.

Yeah, SO Long Mr Despair had this crap going on all the time with the flash panels of craziness and text.

But Sayanora Despair-Sensei was also generally comedic (even if it was often dark comedy), so the style wasn't so bad.  Also, it recycled a lot less footage.  The big thing was "...makes me despair!"

Bakemonogatari actually kind of grated with just how much they jammed in the 'kuro' and 'aka' panels.  The minimalist style made it feel that despite the fact that it was around 90% exposition, nothing was actually happening.  I did like that almost every character got their own op, the characters were generally interesting when they weren't lining up in a generic pseudo-harem (or being a molested loli), and the romance angle was well explored.  They didn't do much to answer the question of the main character's own oddity, and I felt that Hasegawa's storyline was surprisingly lacking in closure, all things considered.

As much as I can complain, I didn't dislike it, I just felt it deserved to be better than it was, and using less gimmicky animation techniques (or just the existing ones more sparingly) might have done a lot to alleviate that.  For example, the very brief action segments in the final episode were so stunningly well animated they made the rest of the anime look bland and static by comparison.  I don't know.  Stylistic suck?

(Never saw Dash, and Negima put me off from the manga, so I never even tried -- but I actually liked Madoka quite a bit.  Don't get me started on Hidamari Sketchbook; Sketchbook Full Colors over Hidamari Sketchbook any day of the week!)

QuoteThe minimalist style made it feel that despite the fact that it was around 90% exposition, nothing was actually happening.

Nothing was happening. The whole show is powered by the strength of the characters' conversations than anything else. Having seen some of their early works I know tend to have these faceless people stand-ins all over the place. The absence would suggest that the characters we follow are isolated from the rest of the world in some way.

And no, I'm not trying to say your opinion is wrong or anything. Hell, you said you liked the show.

QuoteSketchbook Full Colors over Hidamari Sketch any day of the week!)

Blasphemy! Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou(manga) = Aria > Hidamari > Sketchbook!

Bonus! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duWTfl4MJ1c&list=FLdV5Ccj5_8eUac0zS1zwXSQ&index=28&feature=plpp_video)

Eh.

They achieved the 'these people are isolated' well. The additional 'here's a flicked card with nothing on it' didn't really contribute to that experience.

Just finished watching Angel Beats.

Was not expecting it to be as good as it was.  The anime experiences some extreme vacillation between comedic and serious, with it erring more on the side of seriousness than comedy, and is in some places a bit jarring.  Without spoiling it, it's basically another 'takes place entirely in purgatory' anime, much like Haibane Renmei.  Only with a high school setting.

There's some interesting misdirection, and the cast seems a bit too large in some places, but I found some of the individual character arcs really moving, and the end was surprising -- but also very enjoyable.

Well, at least to me.  Interesting, even if it did largely sidestep the philosophical issues.

A lot of people were surprised is wasn't a 24-26 episode show when it came out. While good, it felt like it could use some decompressing.

Did you read the prequel manga?

While I could see it going longer, there were some parts that were already filler as it was.

I haven't read the prequel.  I assume it's about Tenshi?  I might look into it.

Kamen Rider Fourze ended. Good show despite it taking me some time to get used to the fourze suit.

Kamen Rider Wizard's started. Not sure how I feel about it right now. It feels like a more lighthearted version of Garo with a lot of super sentai themes due to the elemental powers, except of course, crammed in just one hero. Kind of weird to see all powers revealed all in the first episode too, I -like- seeing heroes earning new abilities.

TV-nihon's subs also annoyed me with all the special text effects just feeling "too much!" which I didn't find quite as bad on Fourze and some dialogue just seemed really clunky, moreso than usual honestly. I did briefly look at some of overtime's subs, it seemed the dialogue flowed a lot better, and the translation seemed to match the characters better. I'll probably watch a few more episodes to see if it grows on me with overtime's subs.

Gave up on seeing a decently dubbed 'Kokuriko Zaka Kara' in North American theaters anytime before the apocalypse, and got a subbed version. Not much to say without spoilers -- the movie is short and to the point.

I think this is the only movie I've seen to make housecleaning look epic. 'Howl's Moving Castle' tried that in one scene, but didn't quite get there.

EDIT: apparently beef jerky is a notable American delicacy. Um... was a notable delicacy. In 1960. >_>;;

Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 23, 2012, 11:28:52 PMEDIT: apparently beef jerky is a notable American delicacy. Um... was a notable delicacy. In 1960. >_>;;

Maybe a holdover from the original story/the setting?  I can see it being introduced to post-War Japan by US soldiers after the surrender.

Quote from: Brian on September 23, 2012, 11:49:10 PM
Maybe a holdover from the original story/the setting?  I can see it being introduced to post-War Japan by US soldiers after the surrender.

No, it's brought back as an exotic omiyage (souvenir) by a character studying at some North American university. So the implication is rather that they don't have it in Japan...

I can only assume beef jerky tasted better 50 years ago...

Another observation is that the movie is kind of devious at Getting Crap Past The Radar. Some pretty dark notions are toyed with (only hypothetically, though), for what starts out as a cliche Ghibli -- high school romance. Not sure how to discuss without spoiling, so you'll just have to watch it.

It might have slightly-limited rewatch value relative to other Ghibli stuff if it's so spoilable, now that I think of it...

Yeah, most Ghibli stuff you can tell people the plot, but it's in the experience that makes it worth watching.

Quote from: Dracos on September 24, 2012, 10:02:03 PM
Yeah, most Ghibli stuff you can tell people the plot, but it's in the experience that makes it worth watching.

Well, the spoilable stuff is about half of the plot, to be exact. The other half is just them cleaning the clubhouse, and that's pretty spectacular without needing to rely on an endless series of Big Reveals.

I signed up for a Netflix account, just for streaming.  Am currently subjecting Drac to Avatar: the Last Airbender.

I've seen it all the way through, myself.  My main complaint, which isn't a fair one: It's oriented to appeal to smaller children even if adults can find it engaging/interesting as well.  So this results in occasional moments of comedy or tragically butt-monkeyed Sokka.

Unfortunate.

But Iroh makes it all worthwhile.

Agreed.

Poor Sokka.  The very Universe is out to wreck him.  There is nothing he can do.  Sure, he's a jerk, but everyone and everything really is out to get him.  It's a wonder he gets up in the morning with the knowledge that nothing he can do will ever be right.

Episode 12 was terrible though.  Epic bad that made me want to stop watching the series.  So hamfisted.  Just everything about it was terribly contrived.  "Don't bring food to your multi-day journey!"  "One of the 4 people not carrying food will get attacked...and break both his arms, resulting in him crying like a child"  Repetition of baby style arguments from main characters by enormous tribes of adults.  The flying ox that should've been able to make the trip a dozen times in the time that the entire ridiculous debacle took place, and never mind that biosystem of the canyon and how the enormous spider things don't eat people, just attack them.

It did damage.

Hero Zuko was pretty cool.  I think he also runs into problems with target audience bit, but more from a consistency of behavior bit.  His motivations are neat, a young prince with a passionate love for his people and country whose brashness put him on the wrong side of his own father.  But frankly, a lot of times his actions don't draw from his character motivations.  He's often just an asshole to be an asshole.  Sometimes he cares for his men, sometimes he just blindly pulls them into danger for the sake of the story.

Maoyuu Maou Yuusha just started airing. They toned down the rhetoric and explanations that Maou gives Yuusha to sway him somewhat, not so much that it's different but I did notice that the manga seemed to go into more detail. Perhaps reading it gave more impact than hearing it explained though.

The art style looks nice in the animated form. I was a little disappointed that they didn't attempt to emulate the style of the most popular of the manga versions, but this one works quite well too.

I'm a little stymied that there's more fanservice in the form of ... jiggle physics ... but I suppose given the circumstances that it would stand out. It's not completely over the top or anything, but it's still a hell of a lot more pronounced.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with how the first episode turned out, and I look forward to seeing how the rest of the animation plays out. Considering that this and the second season of Haganai are the only things on my watch list I'm glad that this is turning out to be decent.

So...

I just watched that.  My reaction is...that was terrible.  Not good at all.

The manga delivered a tense scene, kept in one place, focusing on the realities of the fantasy world they lived in.  A demon king that passionately believed in what she was trying to say and not that inevitable success of her pitch.  She had things ready to toss at the hero, had thought it over a lot, and was ready to handle things quickly giving everything she had to make it work.  There was a delivered sadness when she couldn't reach him that helped sell the scene.  Metaphors were used for understanding, not the discussion itself.  It was clear that the Demon King was both a nerd and had her weak points, but she didn't come across as a fool.  For most of it, the hero was ready to do his duty to kill her.

In this one, the Demon King is pretty assured of her success.  From the get-go, the hero is in her pace, not stymied by her ridiculous request, but by nearly walking into her breasts and being overwhelmed by her figure.  Rather than passionately trying to make the hero understand, she has time to mock his lack of education, and just pulls out the document while he's staring instead of having them ready to go.  At no point does she take the hero seriously at all or acknowledge that yes he's here to kill her.  He's a joke to her and she casually declares her love for him with easy confidence.  Rather than being grounded in reality, a good chunk of their discussion happens while using some magical toy that pulls up tangiable illusions.  The metaphor of the hill is an actual illusion of a hill in this one.  What the hell?  Rather than a passionate face to face talk, some of the stronger lines are given with the demon lord facing a wall instead of the hero.  Whoever did the layout of that scene was not paying attention.  The hero is casually pushed around and lacks any real sense that he has some strong will to kill in the first place.  He's bamboozled from the get go.  There's no tension at all, and her worry about her physical looks falls flat as a joke because he's been obsessing over them from the very first word in the discussion.  Rather than being ready to die, the demon king instead has magical props around for convenient silliness.  And was hugging a body pillow of hero.

Frankly, I don't think I can even watch a single episode more of this.  It's atrocious and has nothing that stands it above any other 'Powerful Female Decides to obsess on human, gets her way' anime.

Wow. I'm surprised that it turned you off that badly Dracos.

I do agree with a couple of the things that you brought up, namely the body pillow and the way that the very beginning of the meeting goes down. Still, in a couple of the adaptations Hero is somewhat stymied by the fact that Demon King is a beautiful woman. Perhaps not to the extent here, but it's there.

I think perhaps that part of the problem is that there's so many different adaptations to work from that they might be trying to incorporate something from each of them to appease the audience that they'll bring to the show. Of course the problem with that is with so much mingling the product becomes dilluted.

In addition, I think that by trying to show off the entire cast in the first episode they effectively killed some of the drive of that scene, like you mentioned. I don't know how long the series is set to run for, I keep hearing 13 episodes but I can't confirm that, so they might be trying to used the more limited time in the best way they can.

I'll freely and happily admit that it's not as good as the official version of the manga, but I still think it did a good job considering what it had to live up to in the eyes of its fanbase.

Er, not trying to sound argumentative or anything either. Just felt that I should elaborate on some points myself since you went into detail. I have to admit now though that I'm particularly curious as to what other fans of the manga here on SR thing about it, Empyrean in particular since I started reading the manga due to him suggesting it.

I was actually writing my review when you posted, Grahf. I think a large part of the disappointment over the Maoyuu anime stems from how great the manga is. So far the anime is nothing special (although I will be watching future episodes to see how it goes from here) while the manga is probably the best of the dozens of stories that I'm currently following.

I'll second Dracos' complaints about how the events of the first episode were handled. Maou was too composed throughout, the fanservice was distracting and out of place, and Yuusha came across as being too easily charmed by his adversary's boobs. Although he is literally a one man army capable of intercontinental teleportation, healing magic, elemental attacks that could easily level a city block, and casually changing the landscape by swinging his sword around, there is no hint of any of that in this episode. Here he's just a guy who shows up, stares at Maou's boobs, and doesn't know anything. This is one of those stories where having a protagonist who can easily win just about any fight doesn't actually help solve very many of their problems, so having an overpowered Hero doesn't really matter much.

Of the stuff they added, I thought the accidental memory-reveal of Maou rolling around on the floor with a Yuusha body pillow was actually not a bad move. Up until that point she had been pretty much entirely in control of the conversation, and most of the events from the manga that showcased how goofy and excitable she is had been removed. Something was needed to show that side of her, and the body pillow thing did the job.

The biggest annoyance for me (aside from the fanservice) was how the economics was dumbed down. In the anime, the general idea is that war = demand = prosperity. Oversimplified nonsense like this makes my inner economist want to punch a baby. In the manga, it was more clearly explained that the human kingdoms were at war with each other before the war against the demons broke out, at which point they stopped their infighting and began trading goods and technology, which is a plausible explanation for an overall increase in the standard of living. In the anime, they can't stop the war right away because the collapse of demand would lead to some vague economic disaster involving mass starvation. In the manga, they can't stop the war right away because the southern kingdoms (as the front line in the war against the demons) have an excess of military buildup which relies upon donations from the central kingdoms to keep going, and which would overrun the central kingdoms in another human vs human war if the war against the demons stopped.

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.

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.

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



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?

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

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.

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.

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~.

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.



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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 .

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.

ICBM filler was hilarious, though.

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.



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.

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.)

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

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.

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.

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.

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... .

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

Also, there was supposedly politics.

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.

Quote from: thepanda on March 31, 2014, 10:33:52 PM
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.

Quote from: Dracos on February 20, 2014, 06:49:22 PM
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.

Quote from: thepanda on March 31, 2014, 10:33:52 PM
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.

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.

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

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

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.)}

Quote from: thepanda on May 05, 2014, 02:17:22 AM
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.

Was that a twist? It didn't come across as a twist.

Maybe I was too vague, or maybe I just have a different idea of what a twist is.  I'll elaborate.



So maybe it's not enough of a surprise to be a twist.  Still, it awes me how much about the execution of this plot point they did right...while failing to appreciate how the timing of the reveal itself gave no space for it to feel organic or to provoke natural responses.

Quote from: Muphrid on May 13, 2014, 01:46:20 PM
Maybe I was too vague, or maybe I just have a different idea of what a twist is.  I'll elaborate.

Spoiler: ShowHide

So Kuriyama works/worked for Izumi.  Kuriyama has a hidden agenda we don't see until late, very late, in the season.  Don't get me wrong: the reveal itself is well-executed.  It's clearly planned--with Kuriyama meeting with Izumi at various points that we saw.  So in that sense, the astute viewer might not consider it a twist.

But I definitely think from a structural standpoint, it doesn't work.  No one's in a position to react to it, so the only purpose it serves is exposition.  It invalidates the character development in Kuriyama that we thought we were seeing.

Don't get me wrong: it's clear that great care was taken to ensure that Kuriyama's actions were always consistent with this agenda, but the revelation only serves to explain her actions after the fact.  Doing so takes emphasis off her decision in the first place.  Revealing the true nature of things means we can't follow along with the character's development but must accept who and what she is in one lump sum, as it is told to us.

So maybe it's not enough of a surprise to be a twist.  Still, it awes me how much about the execution of this plot point they did right...while failing to appreciate how the timing of the reveal itself gave no space for it to feel organic or to provoke natural responses.

I see a twist as something that changes the context of the narrative without much, if any, set up. I am your father and the like.

This, I felt, was a reveal. There was enough hinted at throughout the show to raise questions about said spoiler and that was them putting the last puzzle pieces so you can see the full picture.

I'll give you Sakura, though.

Sorry if this reads a little incoherent. My keyboard is acting up.

So, I tried a few different anime of the current season.

Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei: http://www.crunchyroll.com/the-irregular-at-magic-high-school

It's pretty good. I've read the manga, and it seems to follow fairly closely. The animation is high quality with a pretty typical modern style. Summarized as Bullshit Ninja Wizard solves his problems with Ninja Wizard Bullshit.

Black Bullet: http://www.crunchyroll.com/black-bullet

I ditched it 3-4 episodes in. Seen a few people calling it "Loli Death Simulator 2014." Little girls fight monsters. I haven't read the LNs, so I don't know how it compares. The pacing seems a little fast. One of the things that annoyed me early on was when the female lead noticed that a person had been infected by the monsters and was going to turn into one of them, she told him that there was nothing she could do for him and let him die a horrible death when his body exploded into a giant spider thing. After that, she fought the spider. She didn't give him a quick and painless death even though with her powers, she could crush him in an instant. Nope, gotta stand there looking sad while he gets town apart in a shower of gore to produce a monster for her to fight. Stupid writing, in my opinion.

Chaika the Coffin Princess: http://www.crunchyroll.com/chaika-the-coffin-princess-

This just didn't catch my interest very well. Characterization seems very shallow. I watched a few episodes and ditched this one as well. Chaika is entertaining, being a bit of a ditz with a magical sniper rifle and a unique way of speaking that doesn't get on my nerves like a lot of verbal tics do, but the other characters are about as flat as they get. I ditched it after a couple of episodes as well.

No Game No Life: http://www.crunchyroll.com/no-game-no-life

I love this anime so much; it's hilarious. The premise is that a brother and sister, both hikikomori and unbeatable god-tier gamers, are drawn into a fantasy world where all disputes are resolved (and their resolution magically enforced) by playing games of various sorts, per the dictate of the god of that world. The art style is pretty unusual; where most anime would use black lines for borders, NGNL uses colored lines. Combined with the bright and unusual coloring of the fantasy world itself, it makes the whole thing look pretty surreal.

The first episode of NGNL isn't really representative of what the series is like. Game theory is a big part of it, at least enough for the main characters to defeat their opponents who are usually cheating or using magic (or cheating with magic). By the end of the third episode it's completely hit its stride, and by the end of the fourth you'll know where the rest of it is going from there. I really can't emphasize enough how much I enjoy this show. Just watch it.

Edit: I tried the NGNL manga. Dropped it in disgust after less than two chapters. It's pedo-pandering bullshit. Dammit Japan, she's fucking eleven.

I've tried a lot of anime from the current season.

Mahouka:
I'm still gonna finish it, and it's pretty faithful to the light novel, but man, does it seem a bit slow.

No Game No Life:
I also am really enjoying this show. It has enough humor and awesome strategy to keep me interested, and it doesn't pander too much. Also, ahahaha, Empyrean, you got Japan'd!

Black Bullet:
I suppose it says something about me that I'm not turned off by the premise yet. It has decent action, a nicer over-arching plot, and mostly likable characters, but I do think that there's something slightly off.

Captain Earth: http://myanimelist.net/anime/21677/Captain_Earth
Kinda like Star Driver, but less FABULOUS and trying harder to have a more coherent plot and stronger themes (children cleaning up adults crap).

One Week Friends: http://myanimelist.net/anime/21327/Isshuukan_Friends.
In the style of Bunny Drop, and about as sweet. While the two leads are nice and you get those warm fuzzy moments, I really like the backups, like Kiryuu, who's the straight-shooting wingman. Gives Hase a kick in the butt when needed.

Mekakucity Actors: http://myanimelist.net/anime/21603/Mekakucity_Actors
Shaft show of the season. Kinda disjointed, since it's based off of numerous stories shoved together into an overarching plot. So, when you change POV, your experience changes. I thought episode 1 was a bit blah, 2-3 good, 4 out of nowhere, etc. If you can handle the massive context switch to try to hold out for the big plot points, or you like the source material, give it a shot.

They weren't separate stories. All the songs in the Kagerou Project were connected in one way or another.

I'm watching Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei.  My prediction about turning exposition into time-wasting animations is turning out not as accurate as I thought, mostly because they're cutting out most of the exposition (conversely, my prediction about cutting exposition making setting more sci-fi generic is still going strong).  At least the animations are pretty.  On the other hand, the character art is... kinda okay?  In particular, the novel puts some effort into describing Miyuki as extraordinarily beautiful, and the anime's character art doesn't reflect this at all. Also, Kirihara's voice is super deep, while Ono's voice is super young.

But the CGI is pretty!

Just watched Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker. It was... Okay. Just okay. The Fight scenes were awesome, but the animation on everything else was....eh.

Gonna watch Eureka 7 soon though. High hopes for that one.

Update! Eureka Seven is awesome, but the Dub is SHIT, Only watched the first episode before switching to subbed.
Binged watched a series called Knights of Sidonia on Netflix. It was good, but short and left me wanting more.

RWBY comes out in 3 weeks, instead of being released after RTX like last time.

Swort Art Online II actually looks better than both the Aincrad and Alfheim arcs combined. Sailor Moon Crystal looked cute. Though it might give me diabetes...

Thought SAO II dawdled a bit.  Comparison to the book below:



But hey, exposition over, obligatory fanservice crotch shot of our female lead for this arc is out of the way, hopefully once and for all.

Skimmed episode I of Sailor Moon Crystal. It's shot, edited, and shaded like a Visual Novel for some reason. The stick figure designs of everyone make the characters from the old series look positively chubby. (The limbs look like they're about to start wobbling in rubber hose animation style.) Didn't notice them doing anything really new with the story.

A few small touches are fun? Luna's laid-back trollface rivals Princess Celestia. The lines say "Usagi! What are you doing! Fight her!!" but her expression says "meh; this is going about according to plan."

Okay, so Luna is standing on a table, there are brainwashed youma zombies stampeding all around the table, and she still has the same cheerful poker face. She also plays Usagi's weak points mercilessly in the earlier scene: "pay attention to me because I am giving you a shiny thing!" It could be just bad animation/writing (some of the transitions between shots are horrible), but I have decided this version of Luna is amusing.

Still watching. Counterintuitively, plugging some of the plot holes and 'wut' moments of the original actually hurts the overall feel of the series. It's a show about transforming princesses who put on makeup as a prerequisite to going all sentai on a bunch of monsters. You either need to just embrace the goofiness, or need a pretty creative background for why the hell it's set up that way. Given that this is a big franchise, obviously they're going to play it safe and not even reach the level of versimilitude of any of the fanfic that tries to add depth to this thing.

It's the same thing with the visual designs. The designs of the original are simple or even endearingly stupid. Taking simple and stupid designs and adding this kind of surface polish to them makes them not endearing and even more stupid.

Okay, you really need to do something unpredictable here if you want to match the experience of the original in some comparable fashion! In the original first episode Usagi hurting the youma by throwing a tantrum kind of worked because of how unexpectedly silly and borderline idiotic it was. Here they have that scene again but then they try to explain it by having the youma babble about 'ultrasonic waves', which just misses the point entirely.

I dearly hope that they mix it up a bit as things go along. Ideally they would do a Rebuild of Evangelion thing where it starts out familiar but then goes completely off the rails.

Crystal is based off the manga story/designs. Don't expect any real deviations from the original anime until after Venus is introduced, storywise. Outside of the 'we need to stretch this to 26 episodes' filler, Sailor Moon R followed the manga plot heavily until that point.

Over all, I expect crystal to compare to the original anime the same way the manga does; the manga had a more interesting story but paper thin characterization, while the anime had better characters, but much weaker storylines past R. I'm just hoping they plan to do the whole series. As much as I liked the original anime, some of those arcs are just painful to sit through.

No Game, No Life has wrapped up its first season. Highly recommended.

I've watched the first half dozen or so episodes of Log Horizon. I've heard that it's like Sword Art Online without the stuff that makes Sword Art Online stupid, although I have no idea what that would be and haven't seen/read SAO myself. Anyway, it's by the same guy who wrote Maoyuu, so I've got high hopes for it. Pretty cool so far, anyway.

Started watching Blood+. I wish they'd get on with the plot and more to the gory vampire violence please.

The last episode of Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei came out.  Overall, I thought it was a half-hearted adaptation that just copied plot elements from the light novel too directly without exploiting the strength of the visual medium.  The non-action scenes from the novel lacked the full nuance of text and the action scenes weren't animated to be as visually exciting as I hoped.  The animation and the art style look bargain-bin generic.

And they put an image of butt-naked Tatsuya into the Material Burst activation sequence at the end, for no discernible reason.

In conclusion: Ugh.

Then I watched twelve episodes of No Game No Life, and it was way better than twenty-six episodes of Mahouka Koukou.

I really like No Game No Life. Definitely my favorite show of that season.

I'll have to get around to watching that then. Along with Terror in Resonance and Tokyo ESP. 

Just saw the raw for the new Fate/Stay Night anime. Thank god for ufotable. Already like it better than the last studio's attempt.

Quote from: thepanda on October 05, 2014, 12:48:24 PM
Just saw the raw for the new Fate/Stay Night anime. Thank god for ufotable. Already like it better than the last studio's attempt.

Link please!

tokyotoshokan, man!

The trailer for the new Fate/stay night (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61RuoLIlCUM) certainly looks pretty good.

The Madan no Ou to Vanadis trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owu7QwRjqqU) looks godawful.  I don't look at preview trailers often, but I can honestly say I've never had my interest in an upcoming series killed so thoroughly.

Edit: Watched last season's Mahouka trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-gkwdGooDU) for the first time.  At the very least, that trailer had the decency to seem interesting even though it's a filthy liar about what the anime actually looks like.  Conversely, No Game No Life's trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqMCYf1FibU) accurately shows what the anime is like but leans really heavily on episode one, which isn't quite representative of the entire season, and emphasizes action over humor, which also isn't quite representative.

General consensus seems to be that the new Fate/stay night is good.  Archer vs. Lancer was very well animated, and they managed to get the first three days into 48 minutes with enough exposition to get by, but not a ton of it (although it's still noticeable in some places).  I was impressed with the music, too: it leans heavily on either Rin's motif or the motif for the whole series, but it mixes up the arrangement based on mood, and it tries to stay out of the way: a few bars of Archer's theme play when Archer arrives, but it goes to the background as a little bit of guitar shortly thereafter.  Was also impressed that they made sure we never saw Shirou's face.

Third episode is going to be the talking episode, isn't it? Or do you think they'll manage to get to the Berserker fight?

I figure they have two options for that:

a) They cut off right as Ilya and Berserker show up.  Decent cliffhanger, but would be a slow episode, only talking to Rin and Kotomine.
b) They cut off as Archer tries to take out Saber.  Would leave fans guessing about Archer's goals and allegiances.  Decent idea, and leaves room for a decent amount of talking.

Ending after Ilya and Berserker leave would be pointless, as it's not long after Archer's shot and doesn't lend itself to a good cliffhanger.  I can't think of another natural stopping point between the two.

Given that this is supposed to run 24 episodes, I suspect they will go for (a), but I'm hoping they'll do (b).

And they finally animate a decent Berserker fight. Some good cinematography in this third episode. Really helps you feel the scale of the battle.

Yep, I'm definitely impressed with, just for example, the amount of inconspicuous CG they've managed to integrate in there that adds to the power of the scenes.  Stuff like sparks coming off Archer as he readies his big shot.  Saber's Invisible Air effect is obviously CG, but it's a subdued enough effect that you don't dwell on it.  Or maybe it's just that they've used so much CG all over the place that it just doesn't clash anymore.

I'm also quite impressed with the music: from Rin's theme in episode 0 to Archer's theme (which I think is new material? or remixed enough that I don't recognize it immediately) as it plays during his introduction or his shot.  Very personal motifs from a classy orchestral score (well, if the guitar can be considered as part of that, anyway).

Oh, new Fate/stay night anime, why did you have a perfectly good Archer vs Caster fight and then as nonexistent an animation of Tsubame Gaeshi as every other adaptation?  When will I ever see a satisfying version of Tsubame Gaeshi? (Edit: Oh god I just remembered I complained about this eight years ago (http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,2821.0.html)).

Coincidentally relevant to my Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei ranting and comparison with No Game No Life, here is someone else's comparison: Part 1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH3wjfzXebQ), Part 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJAJj4bs5WU) by AnimeAddicts. (Warning: NSFW-profanity)

Dog Days season 3 has begun! It's nice to have at least on feel good show this season.

So, finished Sword Art Online 2 today. Such a well put together show. I mean, honestly, this series has become one of my all-time favorites.

I watched a bit of Grenadier.

It was impressively bad.  Even the excessive fanservice couldn't help it.

Oh yeah. The only good thing to come from that show was the breast reload. Oh well, could have been worse. Could have been Fortune Quest.

We have two characters.  One will be a bimbo.  The other a Buttmonkey.
They fight Evil.  Who is in it for the Evils.

Okay so I just watched the second season of Sword art online, and found myself enjoying it much better than I did the first season. Well, the first half of the first season. Then I went ahead and watched Log Horizon, an anime with a similar premise yet vastly different themes. and now I can't help but compare the two.

Did you watch the recap/bridge special between the two seasons?

Also, how do they compare?

Quote from: thepanda on July 26, 2015, 10:24:01 AM
Did you watch the recap/bridge special between the two seasons?

Also, how do they compare?

The character dynamics are similar yet different, like how they both have strong, willful and intelligent main characters who are distant loners that find someway to ground themselves. But while Kirito is a warrior of great skill, Shiroe is a Magnificent Bastard coming of with various schemes and plans.
Then there's the settings. Again, similar yet different. They both have the premise of 'Oh no we're stuck in an MMO!' But the difference being first SAO was a virtual reality game while Elder Tale from Log Horizon is a computer game comparable to WoW. In SAO, they're stuck in a giant floating castle, in Log Horizon, is literal half-scale fantasy version of earth. In SAO, everyone has a clear goal: fight floor by florr to the top of the castle to free themselves, and if they die, you die in real life. But in Log Horizon, no-one knows how they got there, or why, the whole thing's shrouded in mystery that the character must solve. but first, they have to deal with themselves, as everyone becomes increasingly factionalized by guilds. Second, Death has no real consequence. 'Adventurers' come back to life at the respawn point the chapel.

I just started watching an anime called School Live. While at first glance, it appears to be a happy, cutesy slice of life story about an absent minded girl named Yuki, by the end of the first episode you'll discover that it's

I watched some overlord.  It is pretty blatantly wish-fic in anime form, but amusing anyhow.  It follows a max level MMO player in an abandoned but overtly overpowered no-humans guild on the last day of the game...and then it becoming reality.  The NPCs becoming real people dedicated to the old guildies that had designed them.

Also watched up to current on Hestia's anime... Dungeon or something.  It clicks even worse than the manga has so far.  A significant portion of the premise is just every girl goes after poor hero and no matter what they do the main duo remains poor and forlorn.  No matter how much money is collected, their situation never changes.  Levels are weird divine providence things.  Basically I begrudge the staticness of the entire situation, combined with "Okay we have a...why are even more girls approaching this guy who already has a harem?"  I guess I'm being unfair, and it is really common to do that, but for some reason in Dungeon it annoys me, and not just because first girl (Hestia) throws herself at the hero desperately throughout without notice  (Second girl instead gets the usual free ride, and we don't even see the usual acknowledgement of the pursuit at least).

Just finished episode 3 of God Eater, an anime based off the first game of the same name. I'm not sure if this is a good show or if I'm just enjoying the ridiculousness of it all. The flickering, the over abundance of slowmo, how serious everything is; if I didn't know it wasn't I'd think it was studio Madhouse produced. The fighting animation is good. The animation outside of fighting? Eeeh. >_>

Still, three episodes in and I've enjoyed it so far.Let us hope it continues to entertain.

Trying to get through Gate. Not nearly as enjoyable as the manga. I keep checking my video player to make sure I haven't accidentally put it on 1.5x speed. The pacing is just atrocious. It throws all the humor and emotional moments off. There is some weird editing going on. The music is lackluster. The show is just shoddily put together.

Watched...2 eps of that I think?  It's terrible really.  Just from the get-go it starts mauling the manga version.

Been watching One Punch, which...not sure on yet, at least is pretty source faithful.

Watching Heartcatch Precure.

Tried to watch Precure series in order before, was never ever really able to get into the series watching them in order. Decided to skip ahead and generally Heartcatch seems to get good reviews so giving that a shot over the original.

I'm enjoying it so far.

Also amused by the idea that it's a magical girls anime where the main bad guy is called Dune.

Dune, ...are you shadowing for a secret manga organization?

Watching Dragon Ball Super. It's basically the last two movies (Battle of the Gods and Ressurection F) expanded into a tv format with extra filler/details. If you're likely to complain about dragon ball anime dragging on, you'd be better off with the movies.

For the most part it's decent, though the concept of Freeza coming back and becoming a credible threat with four months of 'training seriously' was absurd in both the movie and the show. Dude's been dead for fifteen years, and the saiyans weren't just sitting on their asses (well, Gohan did after Cell, alas, but still).

Quote from: Merc on January 11, 2016, 11:46:33 PM
For the most part it's decent, though the concept of Freeza coming back and becoming a credible threat with four months of 'training seriously' was absurd in both the movie and the show.

I saw the movie, and I have to point out the tension level for Resurrection F did not seem set very high in the first place. Rather than a credible threat, it felt a bit like Frieza came back and lo the cast of characters did say Meh. (Sure, they had to stall until Goku shows up, but whatever....) And then Goku and Vegeta did fight Frieza whilst Beerus and Whis commentate their martial arts technique amid bites of the giant sundae. Given how it was resolved at the end, perhaps giving those two a giant sundae was the higher priority issue compared to dealing with Frieza.

So it was fun, but about as high stakes as a Tenkaichi Budokai. Perhaps that was intentional?

The tension is higher in the tv series, but not much more.



Young Jiji's Dragon Ball AF (doujinshi manga) is a better series overall, and I prefer the evil dragons over Freeza.

Also recall seeing a multiverse doujinshi which seemed interesting as well and longer, if not consistent art-wise. Been a while since I looked at that one though.

On a different note, watched Gundam Orphans 14. New OP song is...okay. The second half is actually pretty good, but the first half is really slow and takes a while to pick up, while the original OP was catchy throughout. Also, boy, it -sucks- to have family in that show.

Worse than having/being someone's girlfriend in UC?

Man, that Gundam Orphans episode 21.

They were death-flagging a particular character all over the place that episode, and when they deathflag a character in this show, they very much die.

Apparently the creators have a perverse sense of humor too. They aired the episode on:

Found a couple of light hearted and fun ones on Bato.to

Kuro  (http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/kuro-r11140)

RaButa  (http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/rabuta-r11087)

Amaama to Inazuma, Amanchu!, and Flying Witch. I'm on a bit of a slice of life kick. Damn near cried at that fatherhood, though.

Went and watched overlord again...but right now been watching G Gundam with Gate.  The Ham is Heavy.

Flying Witch was lots of fun.  Overlord, on the other hand... damn, I really REALLY wish they'd do a second season.

Anyone have suggestions for the Fall line-up?  I dumped my Hulu subscription, but still have active accounts on Crunchyroll and Netflix.

At the moment, I am watching Kobayashi.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6JmbLruXqY which has a catchy PV and is totally a maid/monstergirl fetish anime :P

Haven't been keeping up with much lately.  There's the new konosuba kinda.  What about you guys?

Been watching random shorts on youtube, like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PazXYvWs4U&t=4s) one.

Been watching Youjo Senki, or Rise of Tanya the Evil. It's basically a WW1/WW2 alternate universe with magic where a Pragmatic and amoral Japanese Salaryman is reincarnated into by 'God' in order to make her develop some faith. Tanya, however, refuses to believe that it's 'God', calling it 'Being X' instead. The overarching plot so far is that Tanya entered the military at a VERY young age (9) and due to her powerful magical talent was fast-tracked into being an officer. Hoping to lead a cushy life as a reserve officer, her hopes are dashed when circumstances promptly lead her to the western front.

The anime is produced by a new studio, Studio Nut, and so far the animation has been excellent. Story has yet to be seen, as their are only four episodes out so far.

Steven Universe is almost exactly like someone went ahead and animated a webcomic. Complete with slow meandering pace, occasional bouts of intriguing worldbuilding (in general, webcomic worldbuilding tends to be stronger than webcomic characters), and even Art Evolution. It proved excruciating to watch in order, and intriguing to watch by picking interesting sounding episodes out of the middle and then going back when needed to get necessary context.

I am very conflicted about this kind of storytelling. But at least I noticed its existence just as they're about to release a one-hour-long mega-episode in which stuff reportedly happens.

Just finished Kobayashi. !0/10, would watch a second season.

Anything good out right now? The only thing I'm watch is Boku no Hero.

I enjoyed the first couple eps of isekai shokudou.

Quote from: thepanda on July 13, 2017, 07:52:28 PM
The only thing I'm watch is Boku no Hero.

These shonen series start out cute but who knows what it'll look like 3000 chapters later.

Thus far, I'm convinced Boku no Hero is an extended metaphor for Impostor Syndrome where you feel like everyone around you has the superpowers and you're just trying to macgyver your way through it without actually having any of the qualities that society seems to demand.

Quote from: Arakawa on May 14, 2017, 07:52:23 PM
I am very conflicted about this kind of storytelling. But at least I noticed its existence just as [Steven Universe]'re about to release a one-hour-long mega-episode in which stuff reportedly happens.

Upon reflection, the "11-minute episodes" format seems to be kind of cancer for telling a coherent or well paced story.

Anyone else watching Made In Abyss? I'm three episodes in and its pretty solid. It looks like they didn't skimp on the budget, either. At least no this early into the show.

Not yet.

Been watching Tiger Mask W lately.

Watched an anime called Blood-C, recently.

Though there are many things I liked about it, I can't possibly recommend it due to the sheer, gratuitous, over the top gore. It's about a girl with a sword, fighting monsters who eat people...and I mean they EAT PEOPLE. Mmm, slurp, munch crunch chomp, all shown quite explicitly. Imagine how you'd chow down on chicken, steak, or popcorn, then imagine a monster doing that to humans who scream in terror, with no cutaway shots. That's Blood-C. It's so explicit they heavily censored it when it first aired, but lucky me, I found the uncensored version. The finale actually made me queasy and I've seen a whole lot of gory stuff in my time.

If you have a sensitive stomach, stay FAR away. -_-

Edit: The movie was a heck of a lot more enjoyable than the series, with an actual proper conclusion, unlike the series itself. Also, almost no gore, which was nice.

Just finished No Game No Life. It was actually pretty fun. Nice color pallet.

A couple of gamer siblings get pulled into an alternate world where everything is decided by games by said world's god. They, of course, decide to challenge him.

Huh.  I've been wavering on going to look over that.

The stakes as such that you know they are invincible heroes, and there are pervy elements. I didn't find either overbearing, but I have to point them out. The show establishes their bullshit levels of bullshit right out the gate, though, so it really isn't jarring when it comes up.

Just watched the first episode of the Card Captor Sakura revival, and wow they really went for capturing the old feel. I have to say I did enjoy that. Though this suggests my taste in anime has not changed in fifteen years.

I dunno, maybe CCS is special, being the only shoujo series I've ever followed.

I just finished watching Beelzebub, well Oga is freaking awesome! ;)

Watching Overlord with Gate.

Watched season 1 of Blood Blockade Brigade.

Been watching https://www.crunchyroll.com/demon-slayer-kimetsu-no-yaiba/ lately.  Ran out of it.  Started strong, but seems to be floundering a bit lately with its characters.

I think I've watched more anime in the last two months than I watched last year. CUrrently watching

I'm standing on a million lives
Monster girl doctor
Burn the witch
By the grace of the gods
Kuma kuma kuma bear
Wandering witch


Million lives, Grace of gods, and kuma bear all have surprisingly good bgm.

Anime Yo!

Slime isekai is back and it is good.

Spider isekai is new and actually better?!

Haven't seen MMO isekai (season 3) or Save Scum isekai or Jobless isekai yet. Will report in when I do.

The season of isekai begins!

thought there's only been an ep of spider isekai?

There has only been the one ep. I watched it immediately after the first ep of Slime season 2 and enjoyed Spider isekai's episode more. Presentation was more catchy.

Watched three episodes of 'Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies moved to a starter town?' and it is not good. I don't remember the manga well but I'm certain it wasn't this bad. I swear it feels like they decided to play down the absurdity of the concept for generic fantasy shlock. The main character doesn't even feel like the main character of the story.

I think they omitted a bunch of stuff, too. They mention he failed both the written and martial parts of the exam, but they never show how he failed the martial part. I think he broke the weapons in the manga? Doesn't matter. This has been disappointing so far.

Edit: Episode 2 of Hidden Dungeon took a serious animation hit. Just ouch.

Episode 2 of Spider isekai still good stuff.

I've started watching Dragon Quest: Dai's Adventure. As a manga, it was one of my favorite series as a teenager, and I'd been really excited about it getting a reboot anime, and I picked up Hulu recently, so hey, perfect timing.

It's pretty faithful to the manga storyline so far, and the animation/music has been fantastic (I prefer the original anime opening song admittedly. The new one has wonderful instrumentals but I'm not a fan of the singer's voice for some reason), but that faithfulness has a bit of a downside as the starting arcs are incredibly slow, and I basically have only been watching 2 episodes at a time.

It's been picking up thankfully, as it starts to cover more parts I remember fondly, so maybe it'll get to the point where I feel like binging on more than 2 eps at a time soon or being annoyed that I'm caught up.

Mostly, I hope the series does well enough to get a full adaptation, and not just like 26 episodes before it gets canceled.

Quote from: Merc on January 18, 2021, 04:24:21 PM
I've started watching Dragon Quest: Dai's Adventure. As a manga, it was one of my favorite series as a teenager, and I'd been really excited about it getting a reboot anime, and I picked up Hulu recently, so hey, perfect timing.

It's pretty faithful to the manga storyline so far, and the animation/music has been fantastic (I prefer the original anime opening song admittedly. The new one has wonderful instrumentals but I'm not a fan of the singer's voice for some reason), but that faithfulness has a bit of a downside as the starting arcs are incredibly slow, and I basically have only been watching 2 episodes at a time.

It's been picking up thankfully, as it starts to cover more parts I remember fondly, so maybe it'll get to the point where I feel like binging on more than 2 eps at a time soon or being annoyed that I'm caught up.

Mostly, I hope the series does well enough to get a full adaptation, and not just like 26 episodes before it gets canceled.

I'm a Dragon Quest fan and I happen to have a Hulu subscription this month (go freebies). It's based on the Dragon Quest games, right?

Quote from: Anastasia on January 18, 2021, 07:11:36 PMI'm a Dragon Quest fan and I happen to have a Hulu subscription this month (go freebies). It's based on the Dragon Quest games, right?

It's not based on any particular DQ game, it's its own spin-off. But it uses spells and mechanics from the game, including classes and a lot of the designs are toriyama-esque (naturally). When they announced the anime reboot, Square actually announce that they'd make a video game based on the story too, making it all come full circle: "Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai: Infinity Strash (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRKc7ShKIjQ)"

If you want to check out the manga as well, one place to read it is here (https://dragonquestmanga.com/), it has reasonably hq scans. Hulu right now has the anime up through chapter 50 or so of the manga?

Watched a bit of Dai, but yeah it's Super Budget to my eyes.  Lots of 'they're not even bothering to anime this character' moments with the hordes of mooks they do.  I also adore the manga and hope they go long.

Been enjoying Spider and Slime a bit.  Think Season 2 of Slime has a better motion of it.

Some of the reordering of Spider is a bit odd to my eyes, but functional.

How did you first experience spider? I'm finding people are having very different takes depending on which version they've seen first. And slime is moving into a busy point in the storyline. I can seen another full season and then some before it slows down again.

I read the manga first, which yeah I'd expect manga only folks to find the anime's more inclusive of the Past and Present storytelling of the light novel to be weird and confusing.

Then the light novel, which the anime is clearly trying to be more founded on.  I have not read the webnovella take.

Honestly, there's some fun scenes in spider but they're leaning heavily into the 4-koma version and silly anime bits...  I honestly find they're just trying to compact too much info.  The most recent episode was kind of atrocious in how much it was trying to get across, aside from the heavy metal solo groaning.  Mostly, they seem to be unwilling to give up comedy scenes when they're struggling for clarity.  Some of the skipped sections I could get the choices and certainly it's clear what they're going for as a finale from their prince arc choices, but seeing it skipping right from 'I can't really do magic' to 'I am casting Hell's gate' while sort of skipping setup with the Queen Spider is wonky.

In general, I find the anime builds less Weight to the relationships with her antagonists and ramps up her silliness a bit.  Which is a bit disappointing.

Slime goes into the break on a high note. See you in July, Rimuru-sama.

Wait, there is that 4-koma series getting animated. Never mind. See you next week, Rimuru.

I look at the coming season and just struggle a bit to care.  Bleeeh.

Same.

Slime Dairies was good.

New season of Slime started today.

Spider's quality tanked hard in the second half. I keep seeing they outsourced a lot of the animation to another studio who botched it even worse than what we got. Still hopeful there will eventually be another season, and that they'll have learned some lessons from this one.

Finished Yura Camp both seasons. Good stuff.

The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent was decent enough, I guess.

Can't decide between Super Cub and Amanchu! as the series I want to watch that I've read a bunch of the manga for already.

I disagree...

Spider really had a lot of problems throughout.  There were obviously crummy budget moments at the early parts too.

The manga carried much better.

Hmm. Made in Abyss captivated me even though I hated every step of what was happening past a certain point.

I must analyze this phenomenon.

Quote from: thepanda on August 04, 2017, 11:47:47 PM
Anyone else watching Made In Abyss? I'm three episodes in and its pretty solid. It looks like they didn't skimp on the budget, either. At least no this early into the show.

Hmm thepanda posted about this in 2017... didn't realize it started that long ago.

My interest in it is kind of timely since there'll be a season in 2022? Maybe?

Quote from: Arakawa on December 13, 2021, 10:00:04 PM

Spoiler: ShowHide

 Apply Ghibli background artist and cute furry creatures where necessary to offset audience torture.

Quote from: thepanda on December 17, 2021, 04:29:21 AM

Spoiler: ShowHide

I found that accentuates the horror of it all. It honestly reminds me of Now and Then, Here and There in that aspect. The gut punches just keep coming, and you can't tell when your supposed to relax. Even when something awful isn't happening the anticipation becomes a constant stressor overshadowing everything. Its almost a relief when shit does happen.

True. At the same time, if it was wall-to-wall grimdark in same vein as (as far as I know) Berserk, I would not have gotten as far into it.



My favourite thing to contemplate is that Ozen is probably

Just came back from watching Belle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChneY1MSVFw) at the cinema.

Showing was pretty empty, didn't have to be around other people. Think there were basically 4 others watching it, all sitting in different rows from me. Always nice in these times.

Movie is basically an anime re-interpretation of Beauty & The Beast, where there is a VR setting and the titular Belle is a traumatized girl who lost her ability to sing in the real world after losing her mother, but finds she can sing in the VR setting and she ends up becoming a hit sensation worldwide. And then she meets another person's avatar, a dragon-like creature known only as The Beast. You can guess some of the story elements, it IS a tale as old as time after all, but the story does a lot of good work re-imagining other elements of the story so while you can definitely see the elements of Beauty & The Beast, it also tells its own story and can stand on its own. Wonderful music, some really good animation, and the characters felt fun to watch.

A few bad storytelling cliches though like the Hollywood "Zoom in! Enhance!" trope (and a couple of others that might be a bit more spoiler-ish), but still an anime movie I think I can recommend.

Going to go watch Sing A Bit of Harmony (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOox-L5kmNs) tomorrow as well, hopefully that's as good a movie.

Bleh, wrote a chunk here.  Accidentally pressed a button and blew it away.

Oh well.  Been watching crunchy roll

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 - new season is nicely colorful action.  Broken up into little mini-arcs focusing mostly on the more powerful demon hunters.

jujutsu kaisen - vastly better naruto trio and teacher setup.  Flawed, action packed, and delightful.

Land of Leadale - Isekai OP silliness.  Not good but watching.  Main character lacks purpose and initiative and even true joy at not being a hospitalized cripple.

Ranking of Kings - my favorite whimsy of the moment.  It's a subversive fairy tale around a deaf cursed young prince.  Highly recommend.  It's childish but very much not for children.

Quote from: Merc on January 22, 2022, 05:55:37 PMGoing to go watch Sing A Bit of Harmony (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOox-L5kmNs) tomorrow as well, hopefully that's as good a movie.

Good movie as well. I think I enjoyed Belle overall more, but Sing A Bit of Harmony had me laughing at parts of it since it was more of a slice of life/comedy instead of a more drama/coming of age story like Belle. Both were pretty much musicals, and very strongly depended on the use of the musical components in their stories.

Quote from: Merc on January 22, 2022, 05:55:37 PM
A few bad storytelling cliches though like the Hollywood "Zoom in! Enhance!" trope (and a couple of others that might be a bit more spoiler-ish), but still an anime movie I think I can recommend.

Hosoda's films seem to have an established pattern of doing slightly nonsensical things with technology. And plot consistency. (I enjoyed Girl Who Leapt Through Time but man, not thinking about the plot holes in that one takes effort.)

The one that really breaks my mind is the "math problem" in Summer Wars consisting of nothing more than a bunch of hexadecimal and "Please solve this!"

Yeah, definitely stuff you need to really suspend disbelief for, but overall still an enjoyable experience seems right way to describe the movie. I've actually not watched his movies before, but saw a few trailers and am kinda curious to see others.

Binged on anime over the past...week? Week and a half? I haven't done that in a long time. It's way easier these days thanks to streaming services.

Ayakashi Triangle: 6.5/10. Fun show at first, but feels shallow and got hit with coronavirus related delays. Ninja boy gets transformed into a ninja girl by a hostile spirit, shenanigans ensue. Childhood friend has a thing for him and doesn't seem to be slowed down by things such as a gender swap. May be the Sahara in human form. Anyway, I watched four episodes and liked it, but I came back after the delay and episode five didn't keep my attention. May give it a try once it's finished.

Life With an Ordinary Guy Who Reincarnated Into a Total Fantasy Knockout: 9/10. It's like a twisted buddy movie where the duo gets isekaied, one gets turned into a super hot girl and the other gets super powers and stats to protect her. It's a comedy that cares about the characters and builds them, particularly the main duo. I watched the entire season and loved it, would watch a second season. Fun, well done show that knows what makes it work. Recommended for anyone who would enjoy an isekai parody.

Tomo-chan Is A Girl: 9/10. So after that I looked up something current and lighthearted, so here we are. Guy likes girl. Girl likes guy. Both are childhood friends and the girl is a total tomboy. Shenanigans ensue. The formula itself isn't unique, but the depth given to the characters shine. The main four in particular grow on you quickly as the two stars figure out their relationship. Typical fare made far better by quality. It's only 9 episodes in but I'm looking forward to the last 3-4.

Saving 80,000 Gold In Another World For My Retirement: 4/10. So I wanted to like this one. An isekai where the heroine's power is to teleport between worlds, including her modern day home. So adventure over in episode 1, right? Nah, she decides to become a merchant and sell modern goods in a medieval world. I like the ideas here but the execution fell flat for me. The heroine didn't do it for me after a few episodes, the noble family she attached to annoyed me and overall the concept didn't gel. Not terrible as much as a taste mismatch.

Gundam: Witch Of Mercury: Postponed/10. After a lot of fantasy I checked in on Gundam. Saw episode 0 of this. It's a nicely animated space epic with darker overtones. However, I quickly realized I wasn't in the mood for darker anime. For that matter I wasn't in the mood for Gundam's typical commentary on war, violence and weapons. I'll come back to it when my mood fits it. It has potential.

Reborn to Master the Blade: From Hero-King to Extraordinary Squire: 8/10. So back to isekai. So an old king dies and asks to be reborn in a new life. He is as a girl - Okay look. It's not my fault! Cor recommended this one to me, so blame him or Japan. Anyway, only 5 or so episodes in but I've enjoyed it. Rating's tentative due to that but it has some signs of moral complexity. Hoping it stays interesting.

Utena Gundam is amazing. Totally recommend it!

Quote from: Corwin on March 08, 2023, 01:31:33 PMUtena Gundam is amazing. Totally recommend it!

I'll see about getting to it sooner or later. Still on a fantasy bender.

The Magical Revolution Of The Reincarnated Princess And The Genius Young Lady: 9.5/10. It's an isekai that barely mentions being an isekai except for a few references early on and a mid season plot point. One part anime, one part shoujo, one part yuri and one part political drama. I like the writing and the characters a lot, as well as the sense of consequences for everything that happens. The show does a good job of making the heroine feel like she earns her powerup/isekai cheat ability by the time she gets it.

Up through episode 10, will see how it ends but it should be good. I can sort of guess what's going to happen but it might surprise me.

Kaguya-sama: Love Is War (Season 1): 10/10. A romantic comedy based around a guy and girl scheming to get the other confess first. Deftly written and dubbed, funny and tightly written stuff. Some of the best anime I've watched in a long time. It's a ton of fun and I'd recommend it to anyone. It gets bonus points for a crazy dub that really goes for the gold. I love the narrator.

Kaguya-sama: Love Is War (Season 2): 9/10. Still great, but it loses a bit for stretching out the premise too far. They got away from season 1's strengths and hurt themselves by a lack of progress. I really think they should've had them finally get together in some over the top way and explore it from there rather than string viewers on.

Midway through season 3, going to finish the festival arc tonight or tomorrow and see how that hits me. Also, the narrator's right that Hayasaka's the best.

Kaguya-sama: Love Is War (Season 3): 9/10. Still incredible. See season 2's review, that's close enough to this one to get to the point.

I'd even put the entire 3 seasons as 9.5/10, they're really great stuff. I'd rec this to anyone who likes anime at all. It's constantly funny, the dub is amazing and the season 3 rap episode was worth everything until then by itself. Highly recommended.

It'll be tough for anything to live up to Kaguya-sama's character work. Ironic that despite the main characters getting so much deft work, a semi side character (Hayasaka) ended up my favorite by a mile.

Kaguya's probably my top-rated anime ever. It's so consistently funny and the animation goes so unnecessarily hard to really elevate itself over the manga - I remember first discovering it because of a Super Eyepatch Wolf video where he described it as a 'Non-Battle' Battle Anime. It's like what Death Note did with the 'eat a potato chip' bit but it goes beyond just unnecessarily complex/detailed animation into all kinds of stylistic shifts that play with the medium and accentuate the comedy beyond what could be put on a page. Not to mention musical bits like the rap episode.

Season 3 is let down a bit by Ishigami just kinda becoming a bit of a smothering presence. It's pretty obvious he's the creator's favourite character.

It is really good. Not top for me, because at the end of the day, I got a bit exasperated by it all. You two like each other, just say it already. At some point it went from amusing to amusing and exasperating, which cost it a point. That's probably why Hayasaka is my favorite character. I can relate to her long suffering attitude towards Kaguya's denials, and even when the others annoy me, she usually dishes things straight. (If there's any reasoning to the dub narrator calling Hayasaka best girl besides comedy, I wonder if that's it? The dub narrator certainly shares some exasperation with her.)

I ended up with a solidly neutral opinion of Ishigami at the end of the day. I'd agree he got overplayed in season 3, but there was enough amusement there to stop it from taking points off.

I can see why Kaguya-sama would be someone's favorite. I can respect that choice. It just isn't my favorite due to personal taste.

What is my favorite anime? I'd have to sit down and think about it. Something 90s like Ranma? Sailor Moon? DBZ? Something more modern instead? Have to think about that.

She Professed Herself Pupil Of The Wiseman: 4.5/10. So an MMO becomes real and a guy finds himself now in the form of a cute girl - yeah, I swear this is real and not just mashing cliches together. Anyway, dude's a summoner and summons stuff. Starts terrible and rises to respectable average-ness. It's your standard isekai fare. The premises aren't terrible, but I feel like budget issues (the animation is rough) really hamstring it. Still, it at least finds some heart and episode 8 was good. The rest? Eh. It's very much the first chapter of a much longer story.

I also really like the dub's voice for Mira (The MC). It just works for the role.

My Stepmom's Daughter Is My Ex: Incomplete/10. I saw an episode of this, it's the premise that a former couple become stepsiblings. They don't get along and the vibe I got is that it's gonna be focused on that. It feels like a decently executed romcom, but something about the two personalities in play doesn't pique my interest. I'll try this again later, this might be a case of wrong show at the wrong time.

So Magical Revolution and Tomo-chan finished their seasons up today. Going to spoiler this since it's last episode talk.

Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte: 7/10. So a guy and a girl end up playing an otome game, and somehow the characters within it can hear their running commentary. Cute concept but it's mostly isekai and otome genre filler. Still, it knows what it is and does well if you accept what it is. I liked this but didn't love it.



Reborn To Master The Blade: Finished. This dropped to a 6/10. Decent show that slowly lost itself as the season wore on. Too bad, the premise is solid but it misses the mark. I think it's mostly that the show doesn't do a good job of selling you on why Chris does some of the things she does. They make more sense to me with some thought, but it doesn't feel readily apparent.

Tomo-chan Is A Girl: Finished. 9/10 feels right. A simple show done well and with endearing characters. My only regret is that it doesn't feel like it has any fuel for a second season. Ah well. Great stuff.

Remake Our Life: Complicated/10. I saw the first episode of this. It's...

I hate to trail off like that, but man. It's something. I have conflicted thoughts about it. I like the premise. The characters look decent too. Yet I don't feel compelled to watch any more of it at all. It's quality from what I can see, but that urge to see another second of it isn't there.

I'm a creative person who does creative work, yet I've never really connected with other creative sorts. This is a show about creative people at an art college, so maybe that's why I'm bouncing off of it. I'll look back in the morning to see if it's just a mood I'm in, but I don't think it is.

Anyway premise is that a 20something guy goes back 10 years to the end of high school. He gets a second chance at college and life after life didn't work out. You see enough to tell that it's not his fault as much as bad luck. Bad breaks at the wrong time, which the opening half of the episode captures well. He's given a second chance and he chooses to go for it.

Fun shares I have missed!

I've watched a lot of these as well.  Waiting for my partner to watch Tomo-chan as I read the manga ages back, loved it.  It wasn't long though so they may not have stretched it for an anime.

My Love Story With Yamada-kun At LV999 (Episode 1): Okay start. I'll give it a few episodes to see if the male lead grows on me at all.

The Angel Next Door Spoils Me (Episode 1): Decent enough to give it another shot. See how more of it is another time, since it's already finished.

Not a lot going on right now, debating something established to watch. Haven't quite found that one thing yet.

Had two bounce-offs that's worth talking about.

Re: Zero

Got through 2 of the director's cut episodes, which I understand is roughly equivalent to 4 of the original airing's episodes. I'll mention that now so it's clear how far I got into it.

So I gave this a shot and liked almost everything about it. The mood can be dark without being suffocating, it isn't afraid to show some blood and it feels like has real emotional stakes. There's a lot going on here and the show's good at parceling out some information while using it to ask more questions. Good stuff, right?

It's a case study in how you can do everything else right but a bad lead sinks the story. The lead's constant, completely un-self aware statements of how he's treating the world like an isekai take me out of it every time. To use a word I don't like to use lightly: It's cringe, pure cringe. The rest of the story's engaging, but the lead's antics constantly ruin any immersion I had going. It's frustrating to say the least.

I'd give it a 5/10 if I had to, which is an admission that I like a lot here but there's a fatal flaw that can't be overcome.

Lycoris Recoil

I didn't even make it through episode 1 of this show. So this one may not be entirely fair or is simply incompatible tastes.

Anyway, I tried watching this but I couldn't get into the premise at all. The opening's interesting for the sheer honest discordance of it, particularly the opening speech that shows the assassinations. However, I couldn't get past the style beyond it. Something about modern day waifs being super assassins just...no. Some part of me wasn't able to hold that suspension of disbelief.

That's an odd one for an anime fan. I don't know why, but I knew almost immediately this one wasn't for me.

Also saw the first episode of I Got A Cheat Skill In Another World And Became Unrivaled In This World, which is a case study of decent set up but did you really need to completely overpower him? Maybe it's meant to focus on his real world issues and the social issues around it, but it still left me cold. I'll give it an episode or two more, see what it does with the premise.

Bunch of anime to catch up on.

In Another World With My Smartphone (Season 1 + first episode of season 2): 5.5/10

This is pure guilty pleasure isekai anime. It's one of those shows that's nothing but rote and stock isekai, but has that hint of likeability and a good time that makes it watchable. A high school student dies and it's a mistake, so he's sent to a fantasy world with cheat powers. He promptly starts (inadvertantly) amassing a huge harem.

It's the stockiest of stock setups. It works for a reason I can't quite elaborate. The characters have that ethereal ability to make you care about them. Something about it works enough for it to be fun. Sometimes indulgence wins the day.

Parallel World Pharmacy (Episode 1-7): Not sure yet/10

So anyway, a research pharmacist/chemist/whatever the right word for it is, haunted by memories of a sister who died far too young from disease, works himself into an early grave. Bam, time to wake up in a new world with powers to let him exploit his pharmaceutical knowledge. As like a 10 year old kid since that's the thing all the cool isekais do, I guess? That part feels mildly unneeded but whatever. Again, nothing new with the setup.

What works for me is that the protagonist genuinely wants to improve medical treatments in this new world. It's a typical fantasy affair so his knowledge of modern medicine plus magic to let him generate drugs from nothing can do a lot of good. It's not one of those fantasy worlds with much in the way of healing magic, so he has a lot of room to work. I can respect his altruism, which feels genuine and refreshing to me.

That being said, it's a tough one to get through all 12 episodes for. Conflict just doesn't last long, it's one of those shows where it's about the protagonist winning. I'm not sure what I think about it. It's good but it doesn't rise above what it is at all.

I'm also not if the cute female assistant is just a cute girl for the sake of one, or meant to be a love interest once the protagonist grows up. You never can tell.

The Cafe Terrace And It's Goddesses (First episode): 2/10

A guy inherits a house and small cafe from his estranged grandmother. He goes there and finds she had five freeloaders there, all cute young women naturally. Now the guy wants to kick them out and have the house + pharmacy sold off to make a parking lot, just wants to cash in from it. The girls don't have anywhere to go so they want to convince him otherwise.

Fun premise, right? Turns out the guy's a jerk and the girls are self absorbed and perfectly willing to try and seduce him and blackmail him into changing his plans. Combo that with the fact that all of them come off as likeable as a dead rat head in your newly opened box of cereal? It's not good. Maybe this show deserves more of a shot but I bounced off big time. First episodes can be rough but man, no one there's keeping my interest at all.

I mean, the guy's in the right legally speaking. It's a little more arguable morally - he wants to kick them out day of and that's not cool unless they got notice it hasn't mentioned yet - but he's so unlikable about it. The girls call that and raise that. Time to fold and move on to the next han-er, show.

(I may give it another shot in the event I'm being unfair or the rest of the episode or episode 2 rebound.)

Why Raeliana Ended Up At The Duke's Mansion: Too early to tell but it's promising/10

Stop me if you've heard this one, but a girl dies and is reincar-

Okay, cool.

Anyway, standard Japanese girl is thrown into the role of the murder victim of Victorian-ish fantasy novel she read. As her role in the story is to die and the start of the plot, she naturally wants to change that. Problem: She's murdered in story by her fiance who her parents want her to marry for business reasons. Problem: She has absolutely zero signs of cheat skills or super powers at all, wrong sort of isekai, so her personal autonomy is limited. All she has is the novel's limited information about her life. Problem: She's no secret anime social or manipulation genius.

So naturally she uses what info she does know to try and get a young, dashing duke to be her new fiance, get her out of trouble. Use that information as a bludgeon to get him to play along long enough for the problem to solve itself.

Turns out she's not great at it and makes a mess of things. It's fun to watch her genuinely try as she panics about her position. She's been dealt a tough hand and all she has is some out of context information, and no way to prove to others that it's true. I'm interested to see where it's going with that premise.

Didn't I Say To Make My Abilities Average In My Next Life?: 7.5/10

A fun little show that starts as super typical isekai fluff. Girl dies and is reincarnated with 'average' abilities, but the average between the lowest, weakest ant and the highest dragon in the setting. In other words she's seriously overpowered. Normal isekai stuff and she just wants to enjoy a happy life. So the protagonist becomes an adventurer. Naturally. because this is isekai and that rhymes with wish fulfillment, she makes a group of fast, loyal friends. As it's also anime, they're all cute girls. None of this should surprise you.

On the surface it's a typical, bright and unremarkable fantasy world. Nothing worth being interested in. However, things soon get increasingly darker around them. It isn't enough to spoil the mood of the series, but it makes it abundantly clear things aren't roses beyond the immediate attention of the main characters. People die, bad ends are had and the world's a mess.

The contrast of a legitimately messy world that begins to infringe on events contrasts with the the protagonist's desires to have a normal, happy life. It makes things a lot more watchable and the bright points shine brighter for that. All sorts of plot threads are begun, though none go too far before the end of the season. Too bad a season two looks like it's never going to happen, I was interested by the end of the show.

Birdie Wing -Gold Girls' Story- (First Episode): Seriously not my thing/10

Cor talked me into trying this show. I'm a sports fan, not golf so much, but I know the terms and rules. In general I bounce off sports shows since they come off to me as overly dramatized takes on the source material. Birdie Wing fell firmly into that. My image of golf is a game you play, get pissed off on the front nine, hit up the club house to get drunk, then play the back nine and do something you regret the next day. Something like that, anyway.

Adding anime girls does not improve this formula. Chalk this one up to differing tastes.

I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying: 8/10

A fun, 26 episode long collection of 3 and a half minute episodes. It's centered around a newly married couple, the man's an otaku and the woman's normal. Naturally shenanigans ensue. It's fun with solid writing to get the most out of its limited runtime. It's very different than the normal anime fair, as it deals with such things as the wife trying to quit smoking, a potential pregnancy and settling into their new life together.

It's fun, different and breezy. I really enjoyed it for what it was.

The Aristocrat's Otherworldly Adventure: Serving Gods Who Go Too Far: 3/10

Routine reincarnation isekai. Didn't do anything in two episodes to stand out. I did like the two adventurer-tutors, but that's as far as any of it goes. Didn't do much for me but I might watch more on a rainy day.

Summoned to Another World for a Second Time: 6.5/10

5 or so episodes in now, fun enough series. A guy gets isekaied, takes care of business then gets sent back to a new go around on Earth. Keeps his abilities until high school, when he gets summoned a second time. He's been missing for five years there and has to clean up the mess that caused. Oh, and the rest of his class was summoned with him, including his love interest best friend.

Nothing groundbreaking's here, but I like the NG+ approach. It's pleasantly watchable and I like the best friend, she's enjoyable so far.

Not a lot has gotten my attention this season. I'm passing on Oshi No Ko, which seems to be the stand out and the rest doesn't really tickle my fancy. A few continuations are nice but nothing grips me.

The Great Healer: 8.5/10

Up through episode 10, it's an isekai that at least puts good effort in. I like that it shows the growth and effort, as well as lets time pass rather than do everything in a compressed time period. It feels like an isekai that doesn't do anything new, but makes a good effort with what it has. I respect that a lot and enjoy every episode.

Really worth a watch if you like the genre.



My Unique Skill Makes Me OP Even At Level 1: 6.5/10

I like this show. It's pure anime junk food but it's fun, filling, guilty pleasure anime junk food. It's my favorite show of the season because I like the gimmick, even if I admit there's better shows objectively. Something about the gimmick calls to me.

Anyway, the premise is that the guy gets isekaied to a world where everything comes from monster drops in dugneons. Everything, including food. It's an interesting take on the topic but shallow by nature. It's simple and feel good without any real stakes.

The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen: From Villainess to Savior (up to episode 11): 7.5/10

Hello isekai. Anyway, it's an isekai that has an 18 year old woman die and reincarnate as an 8 year old princess in a fantasy world. Of course, this is the heartless princess that's the last boss of the game it's based on. Yeah, we're not blazing new territory here.

Eh. It's not bad, not great. Very much your packaged sandwich, chips and drink lunch of the isekai world. It gets the job done and has a few bright points, but nothing's really gone beyond the norm.

Last Boss Queen really never stops going 'Oh woe is me, the beloved Queen in the land where I can enslave others and they too will love me'.

I mean I enjoyed it but what a fucked up background and I kind of expected it to lean into 'Hey, we've been perpetually timeline changing for decades' at some point.

Quote from: Dracos on October 12, 2023, 11:26:25 PMLast Boss Queen really never stops going 'Oh woe is me, the beloved Queen in the land where I can enslave others and they too will love me'.

I mean I enjoyed it but what a fucked up background and I kind of expected it to lean into 'Hey, we've been perpetually timeline changing for decades' at some point.

Between the precognition and magical enslavement, there's certainly some dark corners you can take that series to.

What's good this season?

Frieren >>>> 16 Bit Sensation = I'm In Love With The Villainess > I Shall Survive Using Potions > My Daughter Left The Nest And Returned An S Rank Adventurer

This is only a few episodes in so take this with some salt. Frieren's top notch, 16 Bit Sensation has a few holes but I like the gimmick, Villainess cracked me up several times with a great premise and dub, Potions is okay but I want to see more before I have a verdict and I couldn't get that much into S Rank. I think S Rank is a shame because the ingredients for a decent story feel like they're there, but it's a slow starter. I'll wait a bit, watch a few more in a row and see if it finds its groove.

I'll write more about them once they get more episodes. It's still early in the season.

In other news, I saw Crunchyroll has the dubs up for the Kaguya movie, so I'm gonna watch them after I rewatch the series. Only an episode and change into the reward, we'll see how it holds up.

Frieren is remarkably truthful to what I've seen in the manga so far and just as stirring.

Quote from: Dracos on October 15, 2023, 02:05:26 PMFrieren is remarkably truthful to what I've seen in the manga so far and just as stirring.

Yeah. It's MVP of the season and probably the year for me (with the proviso that I wasn't into Oshi No Ko, which is the other big hit I can think of). No other series this year comes close to how deftly it's written.

As for what I'm watching this season?

Frieren >>>>>> 16 Bit Sensation = I'm In Love With The Villainess > I Shall Survive Using Potions > Tearmoon (dropped for now) > My Daughter Left The Nest And Returned An S Rank Adventurer (dropped).

Frieren is amazing and gets better every episode. 16 bit sensation is great and hits a lot of fond points for me, but it's not fair that it's facing off against Frieren. Villainess is a lot of fun every episode and Rae's English VA knocks the role out. Potions is watched mostly to see how silly it gets.

I gave Tearmoon a shot, it started super strong but I dropped it recently after it devolved into school shenanigans. What a waste of a strong premise. I'll wait for a backlog and a rainy day to marathon it and see if it pulls up. I never got back to S Rank, too many other good things this season and it wasn't doing it for me.

I feel like 16 bit or Villainess would be angling for my top spot in any other season. Frieren isn't fair competition.

Frieren >>>>>> 16 Bit Sensation = I'm In Love With The Villainess > Berserk Of Gluttony > I Shall Survive Using Potions > Tearmoon (dropped for now) > My Daughter Left The Nest And Returned An S Rank Adventurer (dropped).

Season's pretty much firmed up, I'll talk about things once it's done. Really good season for the high points. My only real complaint is that Tearmoon started so strong and fizzled out. Berserk of Gluttony's a recent addition, it's not all that great otherwise but Roxy and Fate together are great.

Final seasonal rankings:

Frieren >>>>>> 16 Bit Sensation > I'm In Love With The Villainess > Berserk Of Gluttony > I Shall Survive Using Potions > Tearmoon (dropped) > My Daughter Left The Nest And Returned An S Rank Adventurer (dropped).

Frieren's amazing. It's like you take an emotionally stunted elf, reflect on how a race that lives for millenia deals with humans and mix it together with lots of genuine pathos, a slow pace and genuinely skilled writing. The show's a constant treat and it's my anime of the year without any question. So glad this goes through Winter '24.

16 Bit Sensation got weird. Really weird, in that trippy 90s anime sort of way. I think that might be the point as it's a nostalgia fest, though it does address current issues like AI. Really fun show that hit me in my weak points, even if I felt it slightly overreached. I think it could've used one more episode and defter plotting for

Villainess was an amazing show that I thought got weaker whenever it moved away from Raye troll-romancing Claire. When it was playing that for laughs, real emotions or even reflecting on Raye's homosexuality (a surprisingly nuanced take for anime, far better than not talking about it or only a surface level exploration), it was great. When it got more serious, I felt the plot tended to stumble. I wasn't thrilled with the execution of the mid season climax or the last three episodes.



Berserk Of Glutton is typical shonen/system stuff. I'm merely fond of Fate and Roxy. I won't defend this one, it's basically if someone took Hungry Hungry Hippos, realized they were missing all the white balls and substituted in all the you lose money cards from Monopoly in as a replacement. It's fun enough for what it is and Fate losing stats slows him down slightly. Honestly, the stats hardly matter overall.

Potions? Eh. I watched it because the isekai power it granted was broken and stuck with it. Heroine's like if one of those fanon Nabiki Tendos with a heart of gold got isekaied, but the fanfic author remembered she still was Nabiki Tendo.

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New season's starting so not much there yet, but I did see season one of Banished From The Hero's Party. No, I'm not writing the entire title out. Fun show, particularly because it has a romance between two adults that moves at a decent pace.

We need more Apothecary Diaries.

MaoMao is going to poison.

Will the master strategist take her?

I really enjoyed the manga so far so am glad it is having a pretty faithful anime.  It's the story of a young alchemist who has a little too much obsession with poison getting kidnapped to work as a servant at the emperor's harem palace (The court where the concubines live) in a pseudo-japan setting.

It's a romance story at its heart, with murder mysteries as the main conveyance as Maomao is unnaturally good at puzzling through obscure situations.  Maomao's adoptive father, unknown father, and mother all have entanglements into the higher echelons of the country that are well buried.  The male guardian of the concubine's (who maomao decides is obviously a eunuch) notices the brilliant girl around and starts pulling her into little puzzles, loving how she reacts.

Quote from: Dracos on February 09, 2024, 11:40:42 AMWe need more Apothecary Diaries.

Found the manga based on this post, and forgot to thank you for that. Good stuff.

Saw Sen to Chihiro no Kamikushi in the theater today.  And I remembered, at the very end when I first watched it decades ago, that there was a few seconds where they showed the bouquet had dried, but I didn't see that in the last scene. Anyone happen to remember if that was something real that was cut, or just my imagination?