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Genshiken 2 (TV).


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Stark700



Joined: 30 Jan 2012
Posts: 11762
Location: Earth
PostPosted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 12:37 pm Reply with quote


Genshiken 2 (TV)

Genres: comedy, drama, romance
Themes: otaku

Plot Summary: The members of Genshiken are accepted as participants in the upcoming ComiFes, and Sasahara must adjust to his new role as club president. Meanwhile, Ogiue continues to struggle to fit in to her new surroundings.
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Episode 1:
Finished watching just now and seems alright. The voice acting is a bit different but I enjoyed it! spoiler[Lol @ the Monogatari reference of Shinobu]. Is it coincidence that both series aired today? Anime hyper

Anyways, decent episode and I just loved the way the characters interacted. A lot of blushing too! The OP song seemed okay I guess, somewhat catchy. Anyways, I'll stick with this. It definitely has potential for this Summer Season.
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walw6pK4Alo



Joined: 12 Mar 2008
Posts: 9322
PostPosted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 2:32 pm Reply with quote
I'm not sure how this third installment will turn out, but it's a sequel, so it's required. Kikuchi is much less threatening with FukuJun voicing him. He'll either do his Watanuki or his Lelouch, and both aren't as creepy as his voice in the previous seasons.
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Seif



Joined: 16 Nov 2004
Posts: 456
PostPosted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 4:08 pm Reply with quote
I'm not crazy about it. It seems super gag-y and any sense of realism is gone. Kinda bums me out. I'm mostly okay with the voice changes as almost everyone seems to be within the same trope vocal range. Except the new subdued deep voiced Madarame. He's seems like an entirely different character.

The animation is way nicer, though.
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ookamigirl



Joined: 15 Jul 2012
Posts: 2274
Location: Croatia
PostPosted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 7:21 am Reply with quote
Cosplay/manga club?
Guess recruiting new members is always hard.
That club certainly has some unique members.
This sure is a weird, but fun anime.
Although, I still can't decide to watch it or skip it..
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getchman
Space Cowboy



Joined: 07 Apr 2012
Posts: 9117
Location: Bedford, NH
PostPosted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 4:15 pm Reply with quote
was Saki's hair always so orange? I think Sue is my new favorite character. good first episode. Gonna keep watching
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Darksorrow29



Joined: 05 Feb 2007
Posts: 412
Location: United States
PostPosted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 9:21 pm Reply with quote
Definitely agree about Jun Fukayama's voice. I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would despite the fact that most of the original cast is gone. At least they make some appearances.

Although I do like Yukana I do miss Ayako Kawasumi on Ono. Just feels a bit like a different character now.
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CrisGer A.A.



Joined: 26 Feb 2011
Posts: 170
Location: 世田谷区 Setagaya Ward
PostPosted: Tue Jul 09, 2013 9:02 am Reply with quote




I have watched and studied this series as much as any anime i have worked on and have loved it for many reasons, and yes, this is a come down sadly. I was not expecting frankly for the new season to match the superb qualities of the first two and Kujubiki but still was sad to see my expectations realized. I agree with you about Ono esp, her character and the animations and style they used on her are definitely inferior. She shows the new lower qualities well, for they use a simplified version of her facial expressions and have made her a comic figure instead of a rather noble yet loveable and rather odd character as she was portrayed so well in seasons 1 and 2, indeed she was one of the key figures...and tho i am glad to see her again, frankly i did not at first recognize her esp due to the strange smile they use now for her face.

Overall, they used a more colourful palette in the art style and moved the focus and the frame from intimate and subtle to more normal and more wide frame. This changed the feel of the entire feeling, and opens up and exposes the series to becoming mundane and ordinary when it excelled at its unique and quite distinctive style before. The meeting room is recognizable but smaller, less intimate and less detailed in its portrayal, which was important before, for the detail and the beauty of of the way it was portrayed as it was the setting for the entire series.....it gave the feeling that a club like this had its own reality and its own self realization and the room where the club meets becomes an essential part of that reality, as any good club member can tell you. So we have lost that safe space for the series to unfold , and i see that they intend to show MORE of the university environment, which will be fun because not many anime series do follow students from high school to college ...even some like Aoi Yoshi only show it summarily....so here we will see more of it, but again, the intimate and small frame of the first two seasons handled this so well, for we were always protected from having the story diluted by location, and were given the power, the full power of the interactions.



As for the new focus on Female otaku and fans of gay subjects, well, i can live with that, it was not my favorite part of Season 1 and 2, but i do hope they don't push it too much., There are dangers ahead here, for they used two of the least interesting characters, Sue for one, and that awful creep who alone survived as an active member other than Ono and our president. I see the winds of change for some of the modern directors are determined to undermine and blow away the tradditional safe zones of respect and balance, and like to push extremes, and oddness and freaky stuff. So i expect we will see quite a bit of shaking and fluffing, and some bizarre stuff done with our beloved characters.

The offhand way they shows some of them, frankly belittled them, and tho i am sure it made the director feel powerful to be able to belittle some of the main characters of season 1 and 2, i frankly found it disrespectful and unnecessary. Ono remains a real problem for me, in her new form, and i am not resigned to accepting the changes as part of the new winds, frankly they don't makes sense and i feel many of the differences are born of the desire for the current staff to set their personal mark on a classic.

I will remain open to what may come but at this point, consider this new season a likely failure and a sad decline of a wonderful series. They will have to do a lot to justify the changes they chose to make and I guess i will enjoy what we see ..and hope for the best...that will be fun. We will see how it goes. Flor now, i am sad but will remain hopeful.



As for lots of female characters we had many before and some of the best of any anime yet, Saki and Ono in particular, Chika Ogiue is understandably still here, and ok so far..but she too lacks some of her sparkle and her power, Frankly the female figures of season 1 and 2 all of them were powerful, strong and had immense strength and realism. Now they appear to have taken a lower path, and all of the girls seem, well rather ordinary and lack much personal power or verve. It is early days...but again, not promising. Anime much of it is about female characters many of them strong powerful, mysterious or appealing or tragic, The danger is that modern directors seem to be unwilling to follow the lead of the past and want to make new tracks, and frankly you cant do much better than we have had for the past 30 years with anime, and there is plenty of room to use what we have had to tell wonderful stories with plenty of individuality as Hyouka and Ano Natsu show us.

You will need to watch some of the previous seasons to understand this new season fully, i suggest all of Season 1 and the first 2/3 of Season 2. The digression at the end of Season 2 into the American Otaku is a forrunning of this new season into supreficial and frankly boring themes. The OVA are essential if you want to know about Ono and Tanaka....and read the Manga to understand how Sasahara and Ogue got together. I also urge anyone who hasent to watch Kujubiki which is the spin off series, in two phases, the first season of it is three OVAs and the second season of Kujubiki is a full 12 episodes, it is a parody that combines a ton of popular genres and is the series that is featured in Genshiken as one of the current popular series and is the subject of many club discussions and Saki cosplays as one of the characters from this spin off series. If you watch the OVAS from season 2 of Genshiken you will see a parody of the OP of Kujubiki.





Season 1 of Kujubiki.(Spinoff for Genshiken)



Season 2 of Kujubiki ...main differnce is that the main pairing is Chihiro who finally gets together with the President Ritsuko Kübel Kettenkrad

Frankly it is almost as if the real club members have left and some kids moved into the club room and are having fun but really have nothing to do with the history of the club. I guess in a way it is symptomatic of modern youth and a sense of detachment and disillsuion that arises from some modern cultural challenges that shake our faith of the past that the future of college graduates held some promise.[/img]
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Clarste



Joined: 06 Feb 2012
Posts: 424
PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 9:02 am Reply with quote
[quote="CrisGer A.A."]
Quote:
The offhand way they shows some of them, frankly belittled them, and tho i am sure it made the director feel powerful to be able to belittle some of the main characters of season 1 and 2, i frankly found it disrespectful and unnecessary. Ono remains a real problem for me, in her new form, and i am not resigned to accepting the changes as part of the new winds, frankly they don't makes sense and i feel many of the differences are born of the desire for the current staff to set their personal mark on a classic.


Okay, this is the part after which I found it impossible to take you seriously. Never attribute to malice what can easily be attributed to incompetence. Both series are based on manga by the same writer and artist. Obviously some effort is necessary to translate manga into anime, including decisions about character designs and whatnot which you're perfectly free to dislike, but honestly the new studio probably never referred to the old anime at all. Because no matter how much you might like it, the anime is not the definitive version of anything. It's just an adaptation of the manga. You can kinda tell because they skipped a bunch of stuff?

Anyway, this is an adaptation of Genshiken Nidaime, the sequel to Genshiken by the same author. It's not the Second Season or the Third Season or anything. It's an adaptation of the sequel. There's no reason for them to limit themselves to the style that their predecessors used to adapt the prequel, and frankly I find your attitude both kind of creepy and insulting to the original work.
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Agent355



Joined: 12 Dec 2008
Posts: 5113
Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready...
PostPosted: Mon Jul 15, 2013 1:11 pm Reply with quote
I don't expect Genshiken to be groundbreaking in its discussion of gender and sexuality, but its still interesting to see a crossdresser and another character's decidedly un-PC but honest discomfort with crossdressing.

I interpreted Hato's story of "coming out" as a fudanshi (guy who enjoys BL & yaoi) as also coming out as gay or possibly transgendered (not a stretch, considering his crossdressing), but according to wikipedia he's heterosexual. Huh? He ships *himself* with *Madarame*, for cripes sake! I know one can be transgendered and "straight"--in that they're attracted to the opposite of their biological sex, in a male's case, being a transgendered lesbian, but Hato identifies as a woman (at least for half the day) and seems attracted to men and yaoi. Is he transgendered and bi? ...am I thinking too much into this?

Yajima's reaction to Hato is even more interesting than Hato him/herself, (especially if we are to accept Hato as a straight, cis-gendered man who just happens to dress as a woman and is attracted to men *cough*). I totally related to Yajima's frustration and insecurity, feeling less feminine than someone who's not "supposed" to be feminine. It makes sense that her insecurity would manifest as intolerance towards Hato. It creates an uncomfortable tension in the group...I hope it dissolves on its own rather than be an issue in every ep, but it was very dramatic as of episode 2.

In general, I'm really enjoying seeing a group of diverse women in anime. This show aces the Bechdel test and is wonderful for that alone! Can anyone think of another anime about adults that focuses so much on women?
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rheiders



Joined: 05 Jul 2011
Posts: 1137
Location: Colorful Colorado :)
PostPosted: Mon Jul 15, 2013 4:23 pm Reply with quote
Agent355 wrote:
I interpreted Hato's story of "coming out" as a fudanshi (guy who enjoys BL & yaoi) as also coming out as gay or possibly transgendered (not a stretch, considering his crossdressing), but according to wikipedia he's heterosexual. Huh? He ships *himself* with *Madarame*, for cripes sake! I know one can be transgendered and "straight"--in that they're attracted to the opposite of their biological sex, in a male's case, being a transgendered lesbian, but Hato identifies as a woman (at least for half the day) and seems attracted to men and yaoi. Is he transgendered and bi? ...am I thinking too much into this?

Ugh, really? If that ends up being true, I'll be pretty disappointed. :/ With the other's acceptance and Yajima's very realistic intolerance, I thought this show's portrayal of Hato's character would be better than that. Oh well, I guess. Also, and this is completely unrelated, but the term is "transgender"--"transgendered" isn't a word. Just a nitpick. Smile

Aside from that, I've greatly enjoyed these first two episodes. I've read all of Genshiken's first manga and greatly enjoyed it, but, being a woman with mostly female friends, it's nice to see more of a focus on female anime fans and fujoshi. (I'm not actually a fujoshi myself, but I have plenty of friends who are and we've definitely had some conversations similar to the ones here.) I still don't like Sue or Kuchiki, though I know people like the latter, but I like the new members so far. I also like the more mild, even-tempered Ogiue. Tonally, it seems like the same old Genshiken to me, so I don't understand those arguments too much. Maybe the manga's tone is different from the anime, which I haven't seen. *shrug*
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Agent355



Joined: 12 Dec 2008
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 15, 2013 5:05 pm Reply with quote
It's very possible that Wiki describes Hato as hetero as a default. Tends to happen to characters who don't have a cannon ship/pairing.
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Bango



Joined: 06 Jul 2013
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 15, 2013 10:29 pm Reply with quote
Unless I'm mistaken there's the possibility of Hato still being straight or bi. I don't recall them ruling that out yet. I only mention this because I know some people who's anime preferences and fantasies don't reflect their real life ones. In one case is a guy I know who is straight but he finds the way BL romances are written to be more up his alley compared to straight or yuri shows. But he'd never want a guy to put the moves on him.

I'm like that with several non-orientation things. Some stuff just works in fiction where it doesn't work in real life. It sounds pretty contradictory until you meet people like that and come to see their reasons.

Great 2nd episode. The anime club I used to go to underwent this same transition once when us old timers left due to various age-related obligation. The club eventually got passed to some of the not-so-old people who ran it for all the fresh blood and us old timers would kind of pop in to see what was new every so often.

I always praised Genshiken for it's realism:)
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HaruhiToy



Joined: 15 Apr 2008
Posts: 4118
PostPosted: Sat Jul 20, 2013 10:42 pm Reply with quote
I just caught up with this because CR has this listed as "Second Season" instead of "Second Generation." I thought they were just airing what I had seen before.

Now having caught up I must say they are doing pretty well, sequel wise. Genshiken always had something special that is hard to define and I was concerned that the third season might turn out to be a cheap ripoff.

It is interesting how they brought back Madarame as a feature in episode 3. It is sort of sad but very realistic that he doesn't have any romance in his life even though it seems that there are two other characters who have a thing for him,
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Alan45
Village Elder



Joined: 25 Aug 2010
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Location: Virginia
PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2013 8:28 am Reply with quote
@Agent355
As now shown in episode three (it was in the manga earlier) Hato says he is straight but comes across as confused. That should be fairly realistic, people don't always know such answers immediately.
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Merida



Joined: 21 Feb 2012
Posts: 1945
PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2013 8:51 am Reply with quote
Alan45 wrote:
@Agent355
As now shown in episode three (it was in the manga earlier) Hato says he is straight but comes across as confused. That should be fairly realistic, people don't always know such answers immediately.


It rather looked to me like spoiler[he is pretty confused but wants to come across as straight (and believe so himself).] But as we know from the latest manga (scanlations),spoiler[ he isn't really sure about his sexuality at all when he hastily gives up BL and crossdressing out of fear of losing control.]

I'm pretty curious to find out where this is gonna lead. All in all, i think that Nidaime has handled Hato's issues (and fujoshi culture, for that matter) quite well so far.


Last edited by Merida on Sun Jul 21, 2013 11:26 am; edited 1 time in total
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