Forum - View topicWhat are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6525 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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Wow. Thanks for the kind words.
SA, your own reviews inspired me to try harder with mine. I'm happy to admit your self-effacing irony has influenced me. Your writing has a distinctive personality that I couldn't emulate. Nor should I. The pictures and blue headlines are an attempt to provide visual relief from the wall of text. |
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A Mystery
 Posts: 1886 Location: Netherlands |
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@errinundra
You have a talent for this. In high school, whenever I had to put my own opinion in a book report I struggled to say anything more than 'I liked it / I didn't like it'. Visual relief is a good idea, even if the text very well written. I have seen a lot of episodes from Legend of the Galactic Heroes. It took me some episodes to get into it, but I saw how good this was going to be. Now, I've never finished it... Maybe it was the spoiler[shock after the redhead friend of Reinhard died (I cried!)] but I stopped somewhere after that. Now if I want to continue, I'd have to start over because I forgot too much. As for what I'm watching right now: Kokoro connect: Still going strong. The characters are all well written, although Aoki needs more time to shine. I thought they'd spoiler[bodyswap again] in episode 6, but this series is too smart for that and does something new. Sword Art Online: I haven't watched the newest episode yet, but I will sometime today. There's some weird timeskipping, Kirito is maybe a bit too strong and while the short stories were entertaining, most people are waiting for the main storyline, where all important ongoing characters that have been introduced will participate in. For me these are minor issues though. So far, I like the characters, the action, the music, the drama, the story - just about everything. It might also be one of the few series that have serious adventure/action mixed with spoiler[some romance] - a combination I love. Tari Tari: I haven't seen the newest episodes either, but I still like it. It's a bit slow, but I don't see the quality dropping. The characters are reasonably developed, I like the singing theme, the slice of life and there's some drama. Humanity has declined/Jinrui wa suitai shimashita: I have never seen anything like this, but it's awesome. The comedy, Watashi's character, the chaos of a storyline that still seems to make sense somewhere and the series parodying everything that can be parodied. Of course I'm going to miss lots of references but wow, this is entertaining. I didn't like the manga part as much as the rest, but that's just personal preference. Natsuyuki Rendezvous: I feel like dropping it in the future. I love josei shows, but I'm liking this one less and less each episode (I've seen six now). Now, what's wrong with it? As I said, I have a hard time expressing why I feel that way sometimes, but there's something about all of the characters and the series is less down to earth than in episode 1. Sure, there was Shimao being a ghost, but that was about it. I don't feel like the theme of getting over a loved one is handled very well. I wouldn't want Hazuki as a boyfriend either, a pretty young guy, but apart from having an initially shy and then pretty direct personality - he's been a bit creepy with buying all the plants and having no other likes/dislikes than loving Rokka and fighting with Shimao. Not even once it has been mentioned that he doesn't seem to have a (social) life out of the flower shop. And how will Rokka ever like the real Hazuki if spoiler[what's she's dealing with now is Shimao in Hazuki's body?!] I don't know. I'll stop thinking about it now. |
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Masakaki
Posts: 166 |
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[edit]
Last edited by Masakaki on Mon Nov 12, 2012 6:37 am; edited 6 times in total |
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Unicorn_Blade
 Posts: 1153 Location: UK |
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Claymore looked like something right up my alley. Darkness, mystery, fantasy, monsters, fights and some great female characters, on paper at least.
It made me feel very tired. How many times can one see the same limb(s) torn away from a body, regenerated, and torn again, and again, and again. There was so much violence in the series that at one point it made me feel indifferent about the characters and what they were going through. It was just a bit too much and I cant say I enjoyed the series as a whole. It was not very bad, but I did not link with the characters and Raki was just plainly annoying, specially at the end. I wished for spoiler[Priscilla to be finished off], which did not happen unfortunately. It would make sense if there was a second season, but as far as I know there is none, so the ending was far from satisfying. |
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Botan24
 Posts: 684 Location: Northern Michigan |
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Finally finished The Twelve Kingdoms.
This is the way to tell fantasy! I know it's a light novel adaptation, and the novels are based off a Chinese legend. But, I like that. Legends and myths sometimes have some of the best characters (protagonists and antagonists). And there's even a good moral most of the time. I loved Yoko, though she started out wimpy and whiny. However she quickly improved. By the end of her arc, she was becoming a force to be reckoned with. The show looks great on blu-ray, the people shiny and clean, the backgrounds painted like watercolors. The animation was pretty good from what I could tell. There were a couple of places I noticed discrepancies, but they were very few. I liked the mixture of Asian strings and Irish/Scottish wind instruments. The opener and closer never changed, which seemed strange with a show over 40 episodes long. I did find myself a little lost with all the terminology and different kingdoms. However, the titles, names, etc. were repeated enough times that I learned what everything meant eventually. This is the only show were I actually appreciated the "interlude" (recap) episodes. The interludes reiterated all the previous information, and were very helpful in reinforcing what I'd already learned. I wish that all the novels were adapted, that way I would have learned what happened with Taikei's story, and a few other loose ends. The dub was fair. My only gripe there is a lot of the same voices were used for numerous characters. |
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Kelly
Posts: 868 Location: New York City |
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I've read three different explanations about why the series didn't continue. The first is that there were some health issues among the staff, most notably the lead character designer. The second is that there isn't enough material left for another complete season. The third is that Yoko is no longer the primary character after the point of the story at which the anime ended, and there were concerns about viewers staying with the series with her no longer the lead. I don't know if only one of the three are true or it was a combination of those factors that prevented a season 3. Incomplete as it is (and I do feel it has to go down as an incomplete with there not being enough info for the audience to make their own decision about what happened in Tai), Twelve Kingdoms is still my favorite fantasy anime. Really great worldbuilding and some very interesting characters. Maybe someday there might be an OVA wrapping up Taiki's story, although I wouldn't count on it too much with the amount of time that has now passed. |
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wandering-dreamer
 Posts: 1733 |
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Somehow I've ended up with the odd goal of watching nearly every anime based on a Clamp work by the end of the year so I'm currently plowing my way thought X TV. I'm a bit over halfway through so I've finally started liking the characters (I was sure I'd never like Kamui based on the first half of the series) and it's rather interesting to see just how Clamp-y this show really is. I'm more familiar with Clamp's more recent works (like Holic and TRC) so it's amusing to see that their tradition of "it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye", among others, was present even earlier on than I thought. And speaking of their other works, I'm glad that I was already familiar with the basics of Tokyo Babylon since, even though Subaru's backstory is explained as the series goes on, that made it easier to see the parallels between him and Kamui immediately.
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Kelly
Posts: 868 Location: New York City |
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Definitely. X does give a thumbnail sketch of what went down, but the conclusion of Subaru's story has even more effect if you're actually familiar with Tokyo Babylon and the loving, empathetic teenager Subaru was when he was Kamui's age. In other words, knowledge of exactly who the person was who Seishiro shattered so badly. |
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Surrender Artist
 Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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D'awwwww, you're a stick of celery. (What? I like celery, it doesn't taste good, but I find something uniquely satisfying about finishing few sticks of it)
I prefer to keep mine coldly unrelenting to remind those who might oppose me that I can crush them beneath my heavy, polysyllabic boot.
Well, I can't design anything, build anything or save anybody's life, so I'm left to pile words into weird patterns and hope that at least few people buy it.
The tone of Humanity Has Declined is something else. It's somehow absurdly funny even when nobody's telling a joke. I thought that the other episodes were better than the manga episodes too; they seemed too 'on the nose' for my taste. ------------------------------------------------------------- I watched a whole mess of stuff over a real barn-burner of a three-day weekend back in early May. It was one of the strongest 'playbills' that I've ever had and two of the things that I watched became real favorites of mine (Kino's Journey and Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit) I never wrote much about that besides some gushing on the community forum. For some reason, I never could muster the concentration, but since errindundra said nice things, I thought that I might as well give up the one ‘review’ that I did finish. Kino’s Journey is a singular and remarkable series that took a strong hold on my attention immediately and never really let go. It has an entrancing feeling and style that draws great strength from its subtlety and austerity. Its lead is a distinctly and interestingly human character who never loses her ability to feel to her stoic habits, but is ever just a little bit inscrutable. It’s a fascinating series that treats its characters and audience alike with dignity and respect for their intelligence. Kino’s Journey tells twelve stories, one is told over two episodes, that each stand alone with Kino and her talking motoraad, Hermes, the only characters that any of them have in common. In each, Kino travels to a new country, sometimes even a few, but stays for no more than three days; a seemingly arbitrary rule that proves to have a deeply, compellingly personal rationale. Each has themes and ideas to consider as well as a message to convey, but no narrator appears to sum things up at the end and no character gives a sermon. The series has the remarkable courtesy of making it clear that it has things in mind, but leaving it to those watching to do the thinking. Some episodes have single, straightforward narratives, but a few weave vignettes that at first seem disparate cleverly together. The stories take offer considerable variety; some are straightforward, telling a single, coherent story with characters who behave believably, but others are more like parables with characters who behave more like representatives of concepts. Even though some stories are clearly not naturalistic, they’re portrayed with enough subtlety and irony that the contrivance is never irritating. Many of the stories have a pessimistic feel, but some are optimistic, even cheerful. Even if Kino’s Journey is prevailingly grim, on the whole, it is not trying to make a point that people or the world are unrelentingly awful, but that, and Kino says as much, “the world is ugly, therefore it is beautiful.” Kino’s Journey is not trying to depress us, it is trying to convince us that what beauty there is in life exists not despite the bad things that happen, but alongside them and only matter because they exist. Kino herself is, appropriately, the heart of the series. That Kino is a girl is virtually an informed characteristic; she is not in any way obviously female, indeed she is mistaken for a boy at least once in the series and her voice could easily be taken as a woman performing a young boy. The archetypical image of Kino is stoic and contemplative, her face impassive, manner emotionless and thoughts introspective, but the series gives her a greater range than this. Despite being a supremely skilled gunfighter and tremendously competent, Kino isn’t trapped in being nihilistic and cynical.. She shows joy, humor and even horrified distress, all with sincerity. This both makes her believably human and makes her melancholy side ring truer because, fittingly, it stands in contrast to the rest of her feelings. Kino’s Journey uses its art and sound to complement its stories. The strongest example of this is the second episode, which is perhaps the best. It has a few distinctive, but not elaborate or luxurious character designs and its backgrounds are almost all covered in a heavy coat of snow. There is almost no music in the episode, the dominant sound is Kino’s boots crushing the snow. The austerity created by those choices augments the melancholy and introspective quality of the story. Other episodes are brighter, lusher and sometimes more experimental. The creators put great care into each episode, giving each a sense of mood as strong as their stories. The character designs are mostly utilitarian. They look like the people they are supposed to be, quite plausibly human and distinct, but do not stand out as remarkable, perhaps save for a few small details to accentuate their part in the stories. Kino, however, is another matter: short, but purely in a physical sense, androgynously and timelessly young. Kino’s clothing is simple and practical: a drab jacket and pants with plenty of pouches and a brimmed cap with goggles strapped over it. Her face is a different matter. It’s simple and sparsely detailed; looking almost as though it came from a children’s series. This augments the sense of Kino as a timeless wanderer. It lends itself to the stoic impassivity that Kino often shows, yet the artists successfully recast it to express happiness, bemusement and even grief well. Kino’s Journey is a wonderful series with so perfectly, pristinely simple a premise that is unimpeded in exploring any idea or feeling. There is profundity, beauty, sadness, joy or wonder to found in every moment of this series and, most importantly, humanity. This series reached out and took hold of me as soon as it began, by the end of the second episode it had me fully in its grip, holding on with a terrible strength. It still hasn’t let go and I don’t want it to. Kino’s Journey has become one of my favorite series, it quickly took a place beside Cowboy Bebop, Noir and Galaxy Express 999. I almost halt short of admitting it, but at the end of the second episode, I genuinely shed tears of joy at having found something that I could love so. You don’t get a feeling that from Yu-Gi-Oh!, no matter the language. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I don’t know that I’ll ever get to writing about the rest of what I saw at ‘length’, so very brief opinions shall ensue: Video Girl Ai: I found it emotionally compelling and remarkably sincere, despite the ‘magical girlfriend’ premise. The English dub is surprisingly easy to listen to and has the excellent Mary Blue O’Hara as Ai. (I miss hearing her voice in English dubs) Alien Nine: This is creepy and uncomfortable in a good way. The crybaby habits of the lead can be overbearing, but are worth suffering through for seeing aliens that are weird and creepy rather than friendly and cool. Gunsmith Cats: It’s very entertaining and easy to watch, playing quickly over a tightly made ninety minutes, but a touch disposable. Kurau: Phantom Memory: Gere we have a very engaging and emotionally satisfying story that’s a little jittery once or twice, but not so you’d particularly notice. Monica Rial gives a remarkable performance as Kurau, imbuing her with rare intensity of feeling and sincerity. Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit: This series burns slowly sometimes, but has considerable richness and maturity that makes it deeply rewarding by the surprisingly exciting, compelling ending. Balsa is awesome, but you knew that I’d say that. As I think of it, it was a pretty 'sexless' weekend. The three series that I watched have no sexual fanservice and none of the OVAs, slightly to my surprise, were very heavy with it. Video Girl Ai isn't really skeevy, even though it seems like it should be, Alien Nine has some nudity, but it's of elementary school girls and not sexualized (I'm sure that somebody does 'get off on it', but it doesn't help that) and even Gunsmith Cats lacked anything egregious. There was a scene during Kurau: Phantom Memory that had Ayaka Steiger taking in a shower before reading something vital to the plot while in her robe. This is an entirely plausible scenario, but throughout the scene, I was waiting with resignation for the camera to leer at her on my behalf or for the robe to slip revealingly away at a 'convenient' moment, but it never did. I felt a little guilty for my presumption after the fact and I reflected on how strange it is that we've to the point that I expected the character to be sexually exploited. Notwithstanding anything else, I think that it would have been very ill-fitting to the tone of the scene. It's telling about me that I so loved three series that lack any conspicuous sexual fanservice. Kino and Kurau are both rather androgynous. The only lead in any of them who was conspicuously female was Balsa and... well, would you leer at Balsa? I know that I wouldn't. Whatever she'd do to me it would probably be totally badass and hurt like Hell. It was a really good weekend. Last edited by Surrender Artist on Mon Aug 27, 2012 5:06 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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ManOfRust
 Posts: 1935 Location: Seattle, WA |
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The problem is that the novels don't wrap up Taiki's story either. You do get to find out a little more about what's going on with him, but the novels end with what was, in my opinion, an even worse ending than the anime in terms of not wrapping things up in any way. It really does seem like the intent was for there to be more to the story, but as far as I know Ono hasn't added anything to the series since 2001, so it seems unlikely that we're ever going to find out what happened in the Kingdom of Tai. |
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Botan24
Posts: 684 Location: Northern Michigan |
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@ManOfRust: Well that sucks. Why does that stuff happen? Although, as a writer myself, I can understand when you just can't come up with a good ending. But, since this was based off a legend, I just assumed all the stories would be completed, in novel form that is. But, thanks for the info.
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Infinite Freedom Machine
 Posts: 24 |
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I'm watching the first season of Aria and FLCL again, both of them for nth time. I just got the dvds for both, you see. Man those Aria boxes from rightstuf are super nice.
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kaydub
 Posts: 318 Location: Cincinnati, OH |
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I was having trouble deciding what to watch after I finished Mirai Nikki last week (which, for the record, I enjoyed quite a bit thanks to how absurdly crazy and messed up it is) until a friend reminded me that I hadn't seen Steins;Gate yet...
I'm almost halfway through and finding it absolutely riveting. The story is fantastically intriguing so far, especially the way it incorporates real stuff like spoiler[the John Titor postings and the potential for the LHC to create micro black holes]. And it does all of that without reducing it to some hokey sci-fi b-movie plot; on the contrary, it is presented as farfetched yet surprisingly plausible, creating a scenario which, while not entirely believable, makes you want to believe that it could happen. One aspect that I really enjoy is how spoiler[Okabe knows that his actions might be causing irrevocable changes in the past and is conflicted on whether or not he should continue, risking the future and everything he knows for the opportunity for scientific discovery and the prevention of a dystopian society]. But for me, as gripping as the story is, the characters are just as interesting. There are a number of shows that I've enjoyed despite them featuring shallow, unlikable characters (since I mentioned it earlier, Mirai Nikki's Yukiteru is a nice example), but my favorites are always the ones with a strong, well-defined cast, and it's safe to say that Steins;Gate is quickly becoming one of my favorites. Okabe is fantastic as the ridiculous, less-than-scientific mad scientist. In a way, he kind of reminds me of Kamina in a lab coat: a nutjob who gets by on determination and chance, but there's a strange logic to his actions and everyone can't help but look up to him. Kurisu is more than just a cute tsundere, she's brilliantly smart and enigmatic, and her interactions with Okabe manage to be endearing rather than annoying. Daru is essentially a sidekick, but it doesn't really feel like he's a sidekick because he has such a prominent role; it's nice to see a fat geeky guy as a main character rather than an underused plot device (a la Eden of the East's Yutaka). And Mayuri is just So. Friggin. Adorable. If I ever meet a girl that greets me with "Tutturu!" in such a cute voice, I think I'd fall in love. It seriously never gets old. I'm really looking forward to the second half of this show, since it looks like it's just now starting to really get interesting. |
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Mister V
 Posts: 1000 |
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Oh, do look forward to it. Also, if you watch Episode 25, and you tell me the ending isn't beyond perfection, I'll eat my hat. 
Also, there seems to be a movie of it coming out, though the release date isn't set yet. Watched Mardock Scramble 2nd. Can't believe the old Mardock thread was deleted or something (at least according to the search), it's just such a great movie. It's got Gibson themes written all over it, mature take on cyberpunk, great voice acting, excellent art... it's like watching GitS SAC with a bit more crazy. Things like this are rare gems nowadays. Although I must say I'm somewhat... baffled? by the egg symbolism throughout. I get it, it's a powerful symbol, but it's like the author has a bit of an egg fetish, eggs everywhere. |
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Errinundra
Moderator
Posts: 6525 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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If you thought the first half is riveting, the second half blows it away. You will enjoy it.
So it has been fansubbed, I take it. I'm looking forward to it. |
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