Forum - View topicWhat are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)
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Mr. Oshawott
 Posts: 6773 |
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Today, after having watched Animax's English version ages earlier, I finally got done watching the English version of Maid-Sama from Sentai.
My viewpoint of it... It's not terrible...but it could have been way better. While Sentai's English version of Maid-Sama is a general improvement over Animax's, it does have its fair share of problems; some of them even make the latter dub look good in some instances. However, before I do bring them up, I want to first bring up the good points that are present in Sentai's version of the show: -They got pronunciation of all the Japanese names perfectly right (In Animax's version, the "A" of Aoi's name was mispronounced as the English letter A [eI] instead of Japan's way of saying it, [a] (ah).). -The music was left intact throughout the entire show, whereas Animax removed the half-time soundtracks in their version. -In Sentai's version of Maid-Sama, the next-episode preview bits were present, whereas Animax didn't cover them. -Takumi sounds brighter in the Sentai dub, in which I personally found his voice more fun to hear...but I think his Animax voice isn't bad as well. Now that the good points of Sentai's dub of Maid-Sama are out of the way, it's time to bring up the bad ones. The first flaw is found on the first episode and midway through the show and if you're familiar with the difference between how the Japanese and Americans write their names, it's an obvious one to detect...They got Takumi's name mixed up. This sort of error has really been a pain in the neck for quite a while now, which is made even worse with the fact that the subtitles (in the English version) had his name written correctly in Western form.  Maybe the scriptwriter made the error somehow overlooked it on the last draft? Oh, well, moving on.
Another instance that I found a bit jarring within the Sentai version of Maid-Sama is that some of the voices from the secondary/background cast sounded flat and, at certain moments, miscast. Specific, perhaps interesting, case in point: Misaki Ayuzawa's sister Suzuna and Honoka the maid employee. In Animax's version, Suzuna sounded nearly monotonic, whereas Honoka was more expressive; in the Sentai version of the dub, it's the opposite. I think had Sentai cast the monotonic voice for Suzuna and the expressive voice for Honoka, they would've fared better. Overall, I found Animax's English version of Maid-Sama to be a bit more enjoyable than Sentai's. For all the flaws that it has (missing soundtracks, the omitted next-episode preview, and audio-synching issues on one episode), the hilarious atmosphere that was portrayed in the Animax dub kept me thrilled throughout the show, particularly on the first two episodes.  I still enjoyed Sentai's dub, just not as much.
Regardless of which English version is better, I think Maid-Sama is a great show. If neither version of it suits the viewer to his/her delight, well...there's always the subtitled Japanese version. |
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Aylinn
 Posts: 1684 |
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I am rewatching Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit and I must say I have completely forgotten how awfully Balsa started to treat Chagum after their meeting with Shuga. It looks like a cringe-worthy Japanese idea of how children should be brought up, which is a shame. I liked this show so much up until this point.
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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I totally know what you mean. In this scene here, Balsa gives Chagum her spear and tells him to attack her with it, or else she'll refuse to let him leave. After much goading he finally does, and then she hits him very hard and yells at him for turning a weapon on her. That left a bad taste in my mouth to say the least. She's supposed to be the mature one here but she punishes him for doing exactly what she told him to do. It's sad that no-one ever slapped the stuffing out of her. |
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Aylinn
Posts: 1684 |
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Yes, this display of emotional manipulation was just.....
Unfortunately, this is not all. Not allowing Chagum to return to the palace was an awful thing to do as well. Firstly, it was what Chagum wanted. Secondly, Balsa and others had no idea how to save Chagum from La Lunga, so they should have just told Shuga what they knew and let Chagum spend what could have been the last days of his life with his mother and people to whom he must have been much more attached. And Tanda's comment in episode 20 that Chagum says little. Seriously, last time he spoke his mind, it ended up with him being smacked in the face. No wonder he isn't speaking now. 
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Chiibi
 Posts: 4828 |
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I finally caught up with the rest of the world and finished Kill la Kill, thanks to Toonami's broadcast of Aniplex's EXCELLENT dub.
It was very good.....but I definitely have some issues with it. 1. MAKO. Holy f*** was Mako annoying. She got way too much screentime....and I get that she's a good and loyal friend and it's not like she was useless; she did important stuff, yes, but her extreme idiocy and nonsensical rants got on my nerves SO much.....I really just wanted to punch her sometimes (most times actually).....yeah, worst character (besides her disgusting pig-father) in the series. 2. What was Ragyo's motivation? Seriously. 3. spoiler[The death of Senketsu]. NO NO NO NO NO. He was one of the best characters!! Just....why!? I never thought I could feel sad about spoiler[a freaking sailor outfit] lol |
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Akane the Catgirl
Posts: 1091 Location: LA, Baby! |
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^ I'm very glad you enjoyed Kill la Kill! I agree with you on most parts. I do, however, have to politely disagree with one aspect.
Now, I've noticed that Mako Mankanshoku tends to be a very divisive character. I don't think it's because of anything specific she does within the context of the narrative. I think this has more to do with her archetype. Genki has always been- at least in the Western anime fandom- one of the most divisive character types you are ever going to see. A lot of it has to do with whether they're funny or annoying. And a lot of THAT has to do with familiarity with Genki in the real world. Basically, if you know someone or are someone like Mako or Tamaki or Edward in real life, you're going to get the humor behind them a bit more. I used to be a lot more hyper, and of course, I have a younger brother, so I enjoyed Mako very much. |
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Chiibi
Posts: 4828 |
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Here's the thing though; I don't dislike hyper/goofy characters at ALL in other shows; I normally love them and think they're really funny.
But....it was like whenever Mako appeared on the TV, I got mad and wanted her to STFU.  I don't quite understand why I dislike her so much but once in a while I'll run into a character like that; Kaname from Vampire Knight and Saya from Black Cat being two others in the "my god I hate you but am not sure why" category.
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DuelGundam2099
 Posts: 533 |
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Someone other than me loathes Mako- Oh wait you liked the series, never mind. I thought I found someone that found it terribad like I did. Anyway, by request of someone I know on another site I took on Bastard!! with TWO exclamation points! So yes, my thoughts can be summed up as:
>AWESOME MAIN CHARACTER >AWESOME ACTION >MUSIC THAT DOESN'T SUCK >AWESOME SIDE CHARACTERS >AWESOME ART >AWESOME MONSTERS >GOOD PACING (minus a some points in the second half) >COMEDY THAT WAS FUNNY >THAT EVERYTHING This officially made it into my top twenty anime of all time! No joke, it was that friggin amazing! It would have been top 10 and easily beat out the second Gurren Lagann movie, but that cliffhanger ending killed it. Dark Schneider also officially trumps Daemon Abashiri as my favorite "morally ambiguous" anime character! So yes this anime was awesome so I followed it up with something that was kind of disappointing! Specifically Yatterman Night! I marathoned it starting last night and just finished it. The action scenes were enjoyable, the easter egg references I understood were amusing, the twists were good, and the characters were mostly tolerable aside from Leopard's shrill voice, however the second half suffered from some pacing issues, the music was kind of bland, and good lord this series suffered from a lot of stupidity. "Lets stop and make a nude dance!" "This robot turtle must be telling us the truth about an underwater kingdom!" "Yes, lets stop pursuit of our fugitives to capture the Loch Ness monster- err I mean Kussie!" "Guys, look, a floating stick!" "Lets be distracted by F**KING BUBBLES!" "I can make giant robots and traps with no materials!" "these people are helping my pregnant wife, I better rat them out to the people trying to imprison me!" and lets not get into strange animation errors in episodes 9 and 10 ("lets gag the MC with what is clearly a cloth! Now it's duct tape!"; the not-execution scene was notably worse). Did the animators miss a few storyboards or were these errors intentional? I can kind of see old school wackiness in this series, but that still doesn't excuse the technical errors (in a 12 episode series I may add, was there budget issues in the last third?) and it doesn't really mix well with the dystopian dark setting. I'm also pointing out that outer belly button stroke bit because if I saw this ten years or so back it would have disturbed the hell out of me, I used to be a bit oversensitive and easily creeped out about that before I entered high school. Oh well, at least Oda was an adorable smart alick mascot, you rarely see pigs as lovable in animation. It may seem like I am being hard on this, but there was entertainment to be had. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Finally finished Michiko & Hatchin, and it's a relief to get it over with. The writing had gotten so bad that by later episodes it was a chore to watch. There was a lot to appreciate about this show but it mucked up too often and in too many ways, and even its much-vaunted style and edginess and setting and, of course, its lead pairing, could not save it.
What a waste of potential. Though a female director is a good thing and anime could do with more of them, I can't help but wonder what would have been if the show wasn't in the hands of someone as inexperienced and clumsy as Saya Yamamoto. If only her ideas and style had been handed to someone who could've provided some substance. I give this show a fairly generous 4/10. |
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TurnerJ
Posts: 481 Location: Highland Park, NJ |
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http://animeenglishdubreviews.blogspot.com/2015/08/vampire-hunter-d-streamline-sentai.html
Vampire Hunter D Although VHD is not supposed to hit streets until this August, I had the fortune of receiving my copy from Sentai on the early side thanks to RightStuf. A lot of viewers are very familiar with Streamline's cheesy, campy dub from 1992 -- and some even hold a nostalgic attachment to it to this day. Having said that, critics and many fans of the time still staked it with scathing reviews. I at one time appreciated this older dub, but over the years I have grown less and less fond of it. I'm not sure what it was that turned me off from it over the years, but then I figured it out: it sounds dreadfully stiff and stilted. The sound quality was quite bad, too, although that may be on the fault of the equipment used at the time, so I wouldn't dock the dub against it. So does Sentai's newest version fare any better? Or as the case may be, "breath new life" into an undead corpse? Well, I do have a few (minor) issues with this redub, but while some parts may have jarred on me a bit (not out of nostalgic attachment, but because of being overly used to the dub), I gotta say, "yes indeed" for the most part. Helmed by longtime ADV director and scriptwriter Matt Greenfield, this newer version aims to be a much more straightforward retelling, stripping the cheese away. Since the Streamline version was guilty of adding in extra lines (including a campy "permit me to introduce myself" that didn't exist in the opening of the movie when Count Lee unfurls his cloak to an unprotected Doris) and occasionally stretching music tracks from the OST into other scenes, to the point where it came across as out of place with the visuals, it's only appropriate that Greenfield's version dials all that back. Now the opening scene plays very close in spirit to the original Japanese version; there's even a voiceover reciting the text that opens the first scene (done by David Wald, no less). More importantly, Count Lee doesn't talk at all in the opening scene. This newer version restores a lot of nuance and subtlety that the original Streamline release unfortunately missed out on. Aside from the aforementioned opening scene, there's also a brief bit when Lee is talking with the mist in the room when he learns about his daughter and righthand man's disappearance. This was unfortunately missed in the Streamline version, making Lee's talking during that scene more like a bizarre monologue than anything else. The dialogue adaptation is also a lot more smoother-sounding and thankfully less choppy; it's also less on-the-nose, eliminating a lot of the moments from the original that may have struck many viewers as "dumbed down." Thankfully, it also loses the corniness that I found so cringeworthy. The sound mix is also really amazing. The voices sound much cleaner and the music and sound effects come across as crisp and clean, unlike the muddy results of the older version. As you might remember, the original dub also decided to have the characters speak with phony Transylvanian accents. This was another issue I had with the older dub; doing so made the tenor of the story feel more like one of those cheap Power Records adaptations of superheroes from the '80s. Oddly, the new dub decides to take a different approach. This time, both Count Lee and Lamika… sorry, L'armica… both speak with somewhat subdued upper-class accents, which I found appropriate considering the nature of both characters. The only jarring element is that the citizens of Doris' town as well as Dan all speak with Southern accents. I'm honestly not sure how much I approve of this decision, then again it might be my being overly familiar with the older dub that may have affected me. Then I remembered that this is supposed to be something of a "Western" vampire, and considering that most of these characters are farmers and that some elements of the town seem to resemble an old Western setting, it made sense. Oddly, Doris, D, and Dr. Fehring… er, Ferringo, don't use Southern accents. It just felt strange to me because I'm all for ethnicity when it comes to stories in multi-cultured environments. The performances? That's what I'm tackling next. D - John Gremillion -- I'll be honest. I prefer Andrew Philpot as D from Bloodlust. Always have, always will. He far and away is superior to Michael McConnohie, who sounded both miscast and very, very corny, like Batman from one of the aforementioned Power Records. So when I first heard John's version it came across as a bit odd to me; his voice, at least to me, didn't strike me as the same cold, reserved feel that Andy did. It sounded slightly… lighter. But after listening to the rest of the dub, I quickly got used to his voice, and especially thought it excelled when he delivers understated threats like, "I would prefer not to kill you." That aside, his acting is really solid. He does a solid job of making D reserved and conflicted without overacting his action scenes, and again surpasses McConnohie. I haven't heard much of this voice actor, but despite my initial reservations, he gradually won me over. It helps that he has better written dialogue to support him. As mentioned, much of D's lines sometimes veered into cheesy territory in the older dub, particularly when he's comforting Dan or often overacted like when McConnohie says "Back to the abyss… of OBLIVION!" Luckily, John somehow manages to steer around this trap. Greenfield, too, deserves credit for making his dialogue during such moments less corny and more believable. LEFT HAND - Andy McAvin -- I prefer Michael McShane as Left Hand as well. His turn in Bloodlust was funnier and much less nasally than McConnohie; although I see what they were going for by having the character voiced by the same actor as D, it still was very distracting. However, I quickly got used to Andy's turn. He sounds appropriately sarcastic and thankfully not whiny. He even gets one of the best lines in the show: "I swear, this guy is such a hand-ful!" It cracked me up; very funny and fitting. Only thing I'm not quite sure about is the electronic voice alteration to make him sound "creature-like"; I would have preferred it if the vocal effects weren't used, but that's nitpicking. DORIS LANG - Luci Christian -- I was never really a fan of Barbara Goodson's version from the original, she tried too much at times, others she sounded stiff. When I first heard Luci I was less certain because she didn't sound what I had in mind. However, like John, my skepticism quickly disappeared after watching the dub in its entirety. She sounds much more age-appropriate (she's supposed to be 17; Goodson sounded older than that), and her delivery is a lot stronger by far. She brings a lot of unbridled energy to the scenes where Doris is supposed to be aggressive, but she also excels during her more tender, frightful moments. Luckily, too, her dialogue never crosses into Kate Capshaw territory unlike the original. She makes Doris much more sympathetic, natural and more believable than Goodson ever did. That is to say, she's not so all over the place and more consistent. I'm glad I gave Luci a chance; I ended up liking her better than I expected. COUNT MAGNUS LEE - David Wald -- Perfect. Absolutely perfect. MUCH better than Jeff Winkless by far. Winkless sounded much too stiff in his delivery and the phony vocal effects didn't help. Wald, thankfully, is free from any such deficiencies. The subdued upper-class accent he uses for the character is also very appropriate. He has a very smooth, regal quality to his voice that I really like, and channels a bit of Keith David at times. More importantly, his acting oozes with pure evil, every line delivered with dripping menace and charisma. This performance is so good that he really steals the show. I had never heard much of Wald's voice acting before, but after his terrific turn as the Count, I'm officially a fan of his. Kudos! DAN LANG - Shannon Emerick -- I have repeatedly mentioned that Lara Cody's turn as Dan was the worst link in the older dub, sounding distractingly feminine, and worse, flatly acted. Sadly, even in this newer dub, Dan is the weakest of the cast, too. Although in Miss Emerick's fairness, she does do a considerably better job at bringing toughness to Dan's character without making him sound too cheesy. I'm not a fan of the Southern accent, however, and I still find the voice distracting -- it's just not quite convincing enough to be a young boy. Luckily, Dan only has a few scenes. As for how her performance compares to Lara, she does bring a lot more life to the character and Dan's worst bit in the older dub "Oh pleeeeeease help meeeeeee" is luckily much less cringeworthy. So for that I give Emerick points, and she's not as lame in her delivery. I'm just a bit disappointed that Sentai didn't consider going with a boy's voice. But I'll let it pass. REI GINSEI -- Andy McAvin -- McAvin does double duty as the Count's slimy manservant. His voice is more scratchy and raspy sounding than Kerrigan Mahan's more slimy tone, but on the other hand, his acting sounds far more believable and thankfully less hokey. For instance, Mahan's "now you die" as he moves to cut off D's head was one of the lines I most objected to in the older dub; it sounded too corny and unbelievable. McAvin, thankfully, is presented with less laughable dialogue, which helps his performance by far. He sounds like he's having a blast during the scenes where he exudes bitterness. Oddly, he's a bit more restrained in the scene where D cuts off his hand. Whereas Mahan did go all out to the point where he screams "Damn you! I hope you burn in Hell!" This time, he shouts "Damn it! Do you have to be so condescending?!" Which is more closer to the translation, but oddly less aggressive. Oh well, quibble aside, I quite liked everything else about his Rei. L'ARMICA -- Brittany Karbowski -- I actually liked Edie Mirman's sultry sounding voice for the Count's daughter. She came close to being the most intriguing voice of the older dub, but the Transylvania accent still felt forced and she did sound a bit too mature. Karbowski's take on the character is quite interesting. She uses an upper-class accent like her father, which is thankfully less laughable, and her voice is of a considerably higher pitch. She sounds more like a teenager, that is to say, a bit more in her 16-17 range; in a way, it's more fitting for the character's age. There's also a snide quality to her delivery I quite liked. Brittany also puts a lot more emotion into the part, making L'armica more of a conflicted character instead of a contemptuous villain. Very well done all around. GRECO -- Jay Hickman -- The only thing I found a bit jarring at first was the Southern accent. However, Hickman makes up for that by giving Greco a lot more character. His voice fits the character seamlessly and accent aside, I quite liked his acting. He sounds amusingly pompous and even offers occasionally funny bits, like "I'll leave you with Fangey here" or "That kid just called me a stinkin' liar!". It's a considerably different approach than I would have expected, but nonetheless, very fitting and I got used to him in no time. Steve Bulen sounded a bit too wispy as this character and often sounded stilted and/or lacking. There's something about Hickman's take that I find more enjoyable. I can't pinpoint what it is, but again, as someone who hasn't watched many Sentai dubs recently, I am quite taken with Hickman's Greco. He has a bit more of a slight comical edge to him that Bulen doesn't provide. FERRINGO -- John Swasey -- Steve Kramer sounded OK as this character during his normal scenes, but too stilted at times. When he became a vampire he sounded quite laughable. Swasey, by contrast, excels as both. The tone of his voice isn't that much different from his Gendo Ikari from the Evangelion redubs, but he suits this character's appearance well and his acting is also warm and down-to-earth. Even better, his vampire conversion scene is much more reserved and thankfully less stilted. Raspy, as well, which gives it a creepy quality. It's all the more convincing for it. Only thing I wished could have been done differently is after he is stabbed he still has his vampire voice when he shouts "Doris, please!" I liked that they had Kramer revert to his "natural" voice for that moment. Otherwise I have no major qualms. MAYOR ROHMAN -- David Wald -- I'm still not fond of the Southern accent, but otherwise I quite liked Wald as this character. He brings a lot more authoritativeness to this character and sounds very natural. Tom Wyner's turn was mediocre and not really as good as it could have been. It didn't help, either, that he was saddled with stacatto-sounding dialogue. MEDUSA -- Tiffany Grant -- Asuka Langley Sohryu as the vicious Snake Women who attack D in the catacombs? Why not? Grant should play more villainous roles. Not the least bit recognizable, she intones her lines as this -- er, tri-headed… thingy, whatever it is -- with a delicious evil that really shows that I've underestimated her as a voice actress. Miles better than Joyce Kurtz by far. (Although I did kinda miss the cackling bit from the Streamline dub, but that's minor.) Her final death scream sounds much more realistic and less lame by far. MESSENGER -- Mark Laskowski -- Kirk Thornton and Laskowski have one thing in common: both of their roles in this minor part are "electronically" amplified to make them sound lower. Thornton wasn't quite up to his game as this character -- too monotone and often stiff. Laskowski sounds a lot more natural, while having a deep, husky voice to match. In short, Sentai's new dub, while not perfect, is still a very commendable improvement over the original dub by far. It does a better job of bringing Vampire Hunter D closer to its roots as a serious film with only the occasional bit of humor. As mentioned, the original Streamline dub, despite being a favorite of many, was not all that well-received by the community, least of all by Carl Mecak detractors. Only time will tell how audiences and reviewers will respond to this newer effort, but as far as I'm concerned, it is the better of the two dubs by far (even if it has a few drawbacks, they're at least not as grating to me as in the older one). I should also mention that this version is the first to retain the original translation of "Dhampir" as opposed to "dampiel" in the original dub. (Of course the only drawback is that it'll be jarring to new viewers who may watch Bloodlust after this and wonder why the term is coined as "dunpeal" in the newer one. Guess some history lessons will be needed to educate those people.) On the whole I'm quite pleased with the new dub, and the picture quality of this 1985 OVA has never looked better. It looks a lot more brighter and cleaner than my Urban Vision DVD ever did. Scenes that were too muddy and over saturated look much more natural by comparison. I'm not too happy about Magnus' death scene still replaced with the flash cuts from the Streamline print, though; I had figured that this newer version would include the uncensored footage, but I guess that would've been too much for viewers? Ah, well, we'll never know. Sentai's dub of Vampire Hunter D stakes up a very solid **** out of ***** from me. Nothing better than dusting off a classic and giving it "fresh new blood", is there? |
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louis6578
 Posts: 1861 |
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Hold it! -Hallelujah!- Mako is great! She's amazing! My whole family said so! We were talking about what an awesome character she is and how she personifies Kill La Kill's atmosphere! If you don't think the same, then you need to understand that she's amazing! The only way to truly understand this show is to look at it from Ryuuko's perspective, and she's Ryuuko's friend! Therefore, you should be her friend too! The only thing I left out is for you to GET NAKED~! pant... pant. Anyway, I'm on Funimation's Season 2 of Shin-chan. I'm starting to realize that this show, unlike Sgt. Frog's gag dub, is funny from time to time. Like, it's laugh-out-loud hilarious sometimes, but most of the time, it feels like a low-level abridged series, like Mirai Nikki abridged. Some of this comedy gets too repetitive and tedious. Others (like the two undercover cops pretending to be a gay couple and secretly becoming gay for each other) is damned funny. I sorta regret buying all three seasons, but I guess I have to finish them all now to make it worth the pay. |
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justsomeaccount
 Posts: 471 |
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Well, I finally finished Valvrave the Liberator, both seasons, and... well... this may be one of the most consistently entertaining things I've ever seen. Not good entertainment, mind you; but definitely entertainment. I'd say so bad it's good, but honestly, the ammount of entertainment this got on me and such easiness to watch it is not that, there was genuine investment from me in the show. Not by the characters or drama or anything (the really awful stuff you either laugh at it or ignore it, but never annoy or offend you [except the abuse part at episode 10, that's terrible and disgusting and ugh]), but just hooked to see what is going on. It's a guilty pleasure to say the least. I get every hate this show could have, but I had a blast.
If I had to say why this worked on me despite the trainwreck of the writing (and it is, really)... well, despite how bad the writing is for the characters and situations, the overall plot has a top-notch pacing (the overall plot, not the characters themselves), so every episode flows very well, I'm not bored for even a second but without feeling rushed, the perfect ammount, and even the non-stopping absurd twists, many of them are better integrated than I thought, still stupid but it manages to make everything walk very smoothly and they suck you in really well. I was invested in the plot and wondering what was going to happen, and for the ridiculous twists I was laughing my ass off but still wondering what the hell are they going to do with that. Second, the characters, while bad, they weren't annoying, and they really should given some of their lines, but they didn't; and I'd have to attribute this again to the pacing, nice designs and animation and voice delivery; even when they're having entire episode-focus drama, it's entertaining and laughable instead of slow and obnoxious. There is a charm to them, that doesn't compensate AT ALL their atrocious writing and you are not invested, but you can't help but notice it. I don't hate any of them. The last thing is, of course, this is greatly directed: Lots of budget, the animation is consistently awesome, the CGs robots veeery well integrated, the fights and cinematography are really exciting, great music and pacing... given this script the producers did their damnest to do it as entertaining as possible, to the point I'm not even sure if the direction was self-aware of how dumb it is (the script definitely isn't). But I'm kind of glad it doesn't know how dumb it is, I love things like Jojo but sometimes pure sincerity that believes in all this batshit stuff happening and tries to suck you in is very engrossing, even if it only successes in the entertainment and nothing else. |
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DuelGundam2099
Posts: 533 |
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Recently started the infamous Infinite Ryvius, a late 90s series from Sunrise which is known mostly as the one anime where Terada (I forget his first name), the CEO of Banpresto, said will not be adapted into a Super Robot Wars title. Not "the owners don't want their stuff in a game" (CLAMP with Rayearth, Konami with Zone of The Enders, whoever wrote Five Star Stores) or "wrong medium" (Super Sentai, Red Baron, Bayformers), but straight up "not going in" from the licensees. Anyway, two episodes in, and it is.... Eh. Not caring for the music, but the scenery looks nice. Also, one guy is straight up ripoff of Shinji from Evangelion. I am not even trying to be one of those people that think tropes are real, they straight up copy his hair, skin color, and clothing. I guess Gainax was too focused on End of Evangelion's release or thought it'd be free advertisement. Supposedly Valvrave got its "mostly kids being the protagonists and making a society" shtick from here, I'm cautious.
Earlier today I took on some one shot OVA based on some RPG PC games called Cosmic Fantasy: Galaxy Cougar's Trap and WOW this was not what I expected. Neither MAL or AniDB pointed out this was a comedy riddled with ecchi and romance rather than space adventures with pirates. What a load and that doesn't count the poor world building (gotta love how people use magic without explanation) and flat out lies (the main villain supposedly took hostages, but we not only do we not see them or her crew, but she is in a desert in what is supposed to be an artificial colony). This currently has the record for most menstruation references in any anime I've ever seen, but I can't say that for certainty because the subs are some of the worst I've ever encountered even by Mazinger Z/Machine Robo crabstick standards (the same bits of dialogue are repeated and stacked on each other, lots of liberal swearing, and some lines are not translated whatsoever). I've seen plenty of flawed OVAs that don't deserve the scorn they get (Dog Soldier, Gowcaiser, Mad Bull 34, Cybernetics Guardian, both Riki-Oh 1 and 2, MD Geist 1 and 2, Baoh The Visitor, Mars of Destruction, Skelter Heaven, Panzer Dragoon, Wonder Momo, Garzey's Wing, Bounty Dog, Dangaizer 3 The Dark Myth, Apocalypse Zero, De:vadasy, and Junk Boy come to mind), but how the hell does this escape scorn? Two good things came from this admitedly: The art and mech designs were good and the music was decent. Still horrible overall, though. |
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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I have watched the collection of short films released as Genius Party. There are shorts from many famous names there including Yuasa and Watanabe. Some shorts were more interesting than others, specially Yuasa, Happy Machine, looks like some prototype for Kaiba. That one was really great.
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Night fox
 Posts: 561 Location: Sweden |
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I'm now eleven episodes into Knights of Sidonia s2, a sequel I had high hopes for. Unfortunately the show has regressed into a stereotype mecha mold and has lost most of its nuance in favor of mediocre action scenes. The political changes seem forced and are done without subtlety. World building drags and character relationships are either nonexistent or have lost their tension. There's seldom any follow-up on the various plot twists that are introduced and whatever happens seems of little consequence to the main storyline and ends up in limbo. Considering how promising the first season was, the second season is a major disappointment and I don't recommend it. I'd probably rate it 5/10 atm, but I have yet to finish it. (s1 got an 8/10)
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