Current watches

[Brian]

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.

[thepanda]

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?

[Brian]

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.

[Merc]

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.

[Arakawa]

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. >_>;;

[Brian]

EDIT: 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.

[Arakawa]

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...

[Dracos]

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

[Arakawa]

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.

[Brian]

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.

[Dracos]

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.

[Grahf]

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.

[Dracos]

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.

[Grahf]

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.

[Empyrean]

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.