Forum - View topicWhat are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)
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DuelGundam2099
 Posts: 533 |
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Today I marathoned the first Rosario and Vampire series because I had nothing better to do today. So very mixed on this series. For some reason it feels like a mix of Elfen Lied and Princess Resurrection. Many negatives include ultra-annoying fan service to obnoxious degrees (although it made sense with Kurumu since she was a succubus), some of the worst music I have heard in a long time, some rather lackluster writing (so many murder attempts on a private school and nobody does anything about it? I know this is a monster academy but for pete sake), the animation gets reused in areas it shouldn't (like having the same shot four times in a row for NO REASON), and most of the jokes, especially the fourth wall ones, are usually really bad. I say most because Kurumu's booby trap pun actually got a good laugh out of me.
 Strangely enough I found some positives like good action, the cast was actually quite tolerable, the ending was solid, more or less well done pacing, lots of neat monsters, and painful misunderstanding slapstick moments I usually encounter in ecchi titles are limited to just one episode instead of constantly throughout. It is.... Surprisingly not bad. I'll take on the sequel series Capu2 in the near future. Kind of odd this franchise is aimed for kids.
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6525 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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Back in August I saw Patema Inverted at the Melbourne International Film Festival. Director Yasuhiro Yoshiura was a guest of the festival and answered questions after the session. You can read the questions and answers here. The most intriguing moment was this one:
My pre-ordered copy of the DVD finally arrived today (only twelve days late) and, strewth, Yasuhiro Yoshiura has got it totally wrong. 
The person with the notebook resting on his palm is Elder - one of the underground people. Nearest to him is another undergrounder - Porta - and further back is Jack, from Aiga, who, as can be seen, is affected by gravity differently from the other two. The notebook is also from Aiga - it belonged to Age's father - and we initially see it resting appropriately on the floor of the Aigan flying device. As the above questioner observed, without being held down it should have fallen into the sky. Oh dear! (Perhaps Elder has his left hand resting on the book? Yeah. That must be it.) *** An extra on the Hanabee DVD shows Yasuhiro Yoshiura visiting Healesville Sanctuary on the outskirts of Melbourne where he is filmed goofing around with Hanabee staff in front of koalas and emus. Is this extra included on the US or British releases? *** The printed email at the end of the film mentions the following co-ordinates: Latitude 33.3526' N, Longitude 130.2401' E. That is the location of Fukuoka, where Yasuhiro Yoshiura grew up. Last edited by Errinundra on Thu Nov 09, 2017 1:20 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4082 |
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I'm finally getting around to watching my first Gundam series, Mobile Suit Gundam 00. I'm just about done with the first season and while it's good in terms of production values, its use of portraying Gundam suits, and only Gundam brand Gundam suits, as near religious figures and saviors...
"Gundam Trinity" as well as Setsuna's "descending angel" flashback which makes little sense... Its use of portraying Gundam suits, and only Gundam brand Gundam suits, as religious figures and saviors is pretty silly for a series who's primary reason for existing is selling model kits. On one hand, it's Yosuke Kuroda so it has some good narrative potential which comes up even in his comedies but on the other hand, it's dramatic Kuroda, so there's going to be some hamfistedness in portraying emotional scenes. A lot of it, actually, more than even Madlax somehow. A lot more than I expected and I'm only at 22/23 in season 1. There's also a lot of boring, also like Madlax, and a lot of pointless characters and character arcs and plotlines and reveals... Hell, at least Madlax has a great score. |
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DuelGundam2099
Posts: 533 |
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By request of someone I know from another site I review Apocalypse Zero or as I like to call it "People need to stop over reacting to short anime that aren't even that noteworthy and I am starting to sympathize with elitist snobs that assume most fans are 'filthy casuals'". I don't really call that, I just needed to vent. Anyway, this series was nowhere near as bad as people say it is, but it also is not that spectacular. This two part OVA is a homage to dark hero style tokusatsu and manga (the character designs and ending theme sort of give this away if the armor shells did not) except they based the main villains on grotesque sexualization in a post-apocalyptic setting.... Which somehow has functioning schools. To be honest I like the angle it was going for as horror writers like Clive Barker have shown us that sex can be disturbing and for an evil force it can be used for psychological warfare against survivors........ Real shame effort like that never went into very basic parts of this OVA.
-People somehow remain alive after having their blood and flesh burned to the bone. Nope, don't buy it, you'd die of blood loss in seconds after that. Yes I am making this a point because unlike most ultra-violent anime I watch they actually get organ anatomy CORRECT. -Shouldn't we be seeing MORE radioactive animals other than an acid blooded bear and a bunch of over-sized cockroaches? This could have been a survival story if you think about it. -Gotta love how the main villain is female (with vag lips outlines I may add) and everyone calls her a male. -The tactical evils must have really pathetic bite forces if they have megalodon sized mouths and can't hurt a simple human with them. *facepalm* -Why is the school even functioning in a ruined city? -When there is no action going on the pacing is bafflingly friggin slow, good lord this was bad. -The death creativity was lacking, three times they used intestines coming out through someone's mouth. So yeah, but flaws aside this was decent and the main protagonist was actually kind of good, there are many anime far worse than this and many better even in its genre. Don't even go "but Duel aren't you even grossed out by this?" To which I reply "are you a wimp? I've seen a lot of things way worse than this!" Guess it goes to show you how great having a titanium stomach is. 
Now to focus the shift from an underrated title to something deserving of being called trash. Yesterday I decided to take on Outlaw Star and got to episode 10. This is.... Without a doubt.... And I say this in all my years of watching anime.... In a wide variety of genres.... In a variety of spectrums.... One of the most obnoxious television series I have ever watched. It is not quite to the level of Kill la Kill levels of obnoxious, the action is somewhat decent, I like the scenery art, and the ending theme is not half bad. Everything ELSE on the other hand has filled my mind full of in(s)anity. Let start off with the opening theme: It sucks meatballs, next. First episode, kind of forces everything all at once, not that I am surprised as very few first episodes are ever any good. Plot, two bounty hunters find some artificial woman (somehow not a cyborg because she has organs and muscles and if there is any point to this I am not seeing it) and run from some Chinese mafia called the 108 Sons. Turns out artificial woman is needed to pilot the titular ship because........... I wouldn't mind this so much, but they clearly show ship interiors of different vessels, none of the others do this, so why this? Anyway, some bounty hunter woman in an eye patch dies killing one mafia boss and from episode 5 the character design goes from semi-realistic to insanely cartoony because why not? Humor, absolutely dull. The main characters endlessly bicker to one another about money and it gets extremely old by episode 6. In fact that is all they do when not in a gun fight, just bicker! CONSTANTLY! On top of all that is a cat woman who serves an empire, leaving her duties on petty revenge just because the main protagonists happened to be rude! *face palm* This wouldn't be too bad if she was not so clumsy and such a loud mouth! Also an assassin geisha woman appears and joins the main cast because why not? Lets forcefully call her beautiful (talk about forced subjectivity there) to a total failure that can't remain on task after one episode. Every other episode the plot shifts to some menial side quest instead of methods of fighting the 108 Sons. Yes, interrupt what could be a decent story and mystery to go racing! UGH. The animation is also nothing to write home about, the quality has such severe whiplash it makes you wonder how the hell both Sunrise AND Xebec, two very good anime studios with a very solid track record, would allow this. The pacing is also dreadfully friggin slow, it almost hurts. Very hard. I don't even know what kind of specific theme its going for, Chinese? Space? Old west? Law enforcement? Otaku pandering? Racing? No consistency! You can't even claim adventure because there is nothing anyone is even going after so far! You know, I didn't enjoy Trigun or Cowboy Bebop to the extent so many North American anime fans do nor do I think they are worthy of all the praise they get, but I did find SOME entertainment out of them and I can at least understand the reasoning behind them. While mostly for Adult Swim nostalgia/not being exposed to enough titles, Trigun I get the reasoning because it was straight forward steampunk series with lots of art and comedy and Cowboy Bebop references American movies (although aside from Alien and Enter The Dragon I never caught any of them) and acknowledge gay people exist at a time where LGBT rights started to gain momentum. "But what about music, characters, animation, etc?" Most of that was just average for them. Then there is THIS. Aside from being on Toonami what the hell was the appeal of this!? It has so little going for it that it makes me flabbergasted this had a following! I couldn't stop face palming at all the failures this had. You can't even really say its action packed because most of the episodes center around money troubles and pointless bickering that leads to friggin nowhere. The amount of praise around this series reminds me of garbage like Mystery Science Theater 3000 (CinemaSins, older Nostalgia Critic episodes, a good chunk of Anime Abandon, and Honest Trailers also qualify under this category): So much is said about a stated view point over and over and yet when you actually go to watch it for yourself it is NOTHING like you were told, ESPECIALLY in proper context. It also makes me dumbstruck that somehow back when Cartoon Network had the broadcasting rights this series, filled with sexual innuendos, somehow was perfectly okay for Toonami, but Trigun, which had very little objectable content in it, could only get on Adult Swim's late night hours. HOW!? King of The Hill is less kid friendly! *dodges bricks* If its true that Firefly ripped off from this series I have no intention on watching that any time soon no matter how many Joss Whedon fanboys try to sway me otherwise. |
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Chiibi
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Um, nope. Though I couldn't disagree more with your entire post.
It was entertaining? Probably an average anime as far as quality goes, but certainly not the "garbage" you're trying to insist it is. |
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justsomeaccount
 Posts: 471 |
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Just done watching Koi Kaze. This is known for being that anime about an incest (and twelve age difference) romance that is for the most part well valorated for treating realistically and not fetishized in the way many current animes do to pander some specific fans. I'm open to the idea so I watched it.
And yes, in those respects it doesn't fetishize the situation, at least in the conventional way: the tone is very downplayed, the character designs of the main characters are very average (a main male character who is big and grumpy with a rough grim voice? That's inusual) and despite the show acknowledging the sexual themes they don't use it to pander to the audience with creepy fanservice or something (there are some creepy parts, but intentional and with the right tone), and that makes even harder to accuse this show of divinizing it in an innocent and romantical way (although this is still arguable). However the show has problems: sometimes the dialogues can be very awkwardly phrased that makes you feel uncomfortable, part intentional, part unintentional (in terms that it kind of distracts you from the moments), and the first episode relies a lot in contrived scenarios to create the situation, which you may justify with that theory about two sibling not raised together that feel attracted, but in that episode it feels too forced. There's constant denial in the journey, which is good, but sometimes the characters can come too unnecesarily cruel, but it's also hard to fault because you know the intention and how hard is to manage this issue, and the main characters are not portrayed as being right, but sometimes they don't feel like a person would act. spoiler[However, the female co-worker (Chidori was called?) really felt natural and human most of the time, and when her time comes to face the issues with Koshiro she brings the most powerful and impacting scenes of the show. Really dug her character and what she represented, whatever you think about what she feels or how she acted back then. The main characters however had those odd occasional moments where I was distracted and couldn't be that invested many times, but they are fine, and they are so full of flaws that they are not supposed to be likeable, but at least understandable and trying to have some sympathy for them, even if you don't agree with them or are creeped out by it. The parents are very downplayed though, the male co-worker is awful, and even though I get Nanoka's friend's position I wish it could be done more with her. Well, to be honest the ending of the show is an awkward stand to end it when they ignore that this relationship will have more millions of problem at a long-term, but still for the short-term at least it was well done enough.] The animation is low and not very attractive, specially in the first episodes which were for the most part dull, but I'll give it that some impacting scenes are very strongly shown (more the show goes on), and it's nice to see Baccano's and Durarara's director's more early works (I've still not forgiven you about Samumenco though D:< ). Musically it's nice, and the voices are okay but a little too wooden for the two main characters. With Koshiro it fits, but with Nanoka the voice actress has the same monotone for every emotion she shows. So I liked it, it has flaws but not in a way it destroys the effort put into it, and for the most part it represented the issue with both pros and cons and with enough maturity and seriousness that made it compelling to watch. |
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Errinundra
Moderator
Posts: 6525 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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@ justsomeaccount
Did you watch it dubbed or subbed? If dubbed, the unintentional awkwardness you mention may be due to Nanoka being voiced by an adult. In the original the voice actor, Yuki Nakamura, was, at the time, 16 years old. To me Tiffany Hsieh, regardless of her acting abilities, too often sounded inappropriate and thus the dialogue seemed artificial. Yuki Nakamura not only sounds appropriate but her voice acting is very good. I would add that I thought Patrick Seitz did a fine job as Koshiro. |
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justsomeaccount
Posts: 471 |
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^ I watched it subbed. Nanoka's voice sounds right to the ears and the tone it uses is fine, the problem is that's the only tone she uses for every single line she delivers no matter the character is sad, angry, happy, calm or nervious, and that made it very distracting in some parts where it looked like the actress was only reading lines while the character was acting too excited. She probably got better after this and maybe it's part of the voice directing to sound this way, but not a fan of her in this particular role for me. But didn't ruin it or anything.
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zawa113
 Posts: 7357 |
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Oh my, the season and series finale for The Legend of Korra. It's so sad to see it go when I've been following the series for so many years, and it was a continuation of Avatar: The Last Airbender on top of it all. But the finale was explosive and awesome and then went one step further with spoiler[Korra X Asami! Woo!!]
The show as a whole definitely had its ups and downs, and that damn recap ep in season 4 (made in an effort to not fire people, but still, it's a recap ep), but I would still love to see more from the Avatar universe, but I think the creators are done. Thanks in no small part to Nickelodeon themselves being weird about the show, it's like they were actively trying to cancel it at the end and then went "no, wait, we want it back on TV again" while everyone looked and went "wtf? Make up your minds!" I definitely hope for more comics (for both Avatar and Korra) and can't wait to see what Mike and Brian do next, Avatar related or not. |
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Mr. Oshawott
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Today I finished watching Ai Yori Aoshi. Starring in this show is Aoi Sakuraba, a girl who has fallen in love with a lonely college man named Kaoru Hanabishi, whose life had been made harsh after both his mother and, later, his father passed away, having never been married. Both Aoi and Kaoru's families were expecting Kaoru to marry Aoi, but the marriage was aborted after Kaoru went away. Aoi's family had since tried searching for someone they thought would be more befitting, but in refusal to marry a different person, Aoi decided to follow Kaoru instead.
The couple was freed from their burden of their families' affairs but they had no way of supporting themselves. The guardian of Aoi, Miyabi Kagurazaki, offered them to stay in a western-themed mansion owned by the Sakuraba; however, to prevent a possible scandal from occurring unexpectedly, Miyabi forced Kaoru to live in the much smaller "servant's house" nearby. It wasn't too long before Kaoru's friends, who just happen to be female, decided to reside in it, turning it into a dormitory. _____ I found Ai Yori Aoshi to be one of the best earlier anime shows that I've seen. Watching the love between Kaoru and Aoi blossom as Aoi helps Kaoru to come to terms with his sordid past at the Hanabishi household left myself feeling sad and frightened on one moment and happy on the next. On top of that, it was remarkable seeing newer friends of Kaoru making themselves a part of his life after becoming tenants of the mansion and helping out. Long story short, it was an emotional ride. |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4082 |
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[EDIT: Stop mocking people for liking stuff that you don't. -TK]
Wasn't I mocking the show and not the people? I merely described the plot of Ai Yori Ayoshi, what I saw. Hell, I didn't even get into the misogyny of the series {that deeply anyway} and I'm pretty sure I didn't say anything about taste.
...though probably should have. No, rereading his post about Ai Yori Ayoshi, I stick by my initial one. Which you deleted. So what did I say? Or maybe I should ask, what did you read? "Why?" is part of the thread title after all... Last edited by Animegomaniac on Mon Dec 22, 2014 8:56 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Aylinn
 Posts: 1684 |
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The Legend of Korra – I saw the last episode yesterday. I liked Korra’s struggle to regain her power. It was a good idea. One that I would like to have seen in second season, so I was happy to see it here at least. As for Kuvira, it was a character with great potential, but utterly wasted. First of all, I didn’t like this constant finger pointing at how Kuvira is an evil person. It was too ham-fisted. Secondly, I don’t think making her into an evil person was the best idea in the first place. I would rather see her made into an efficient and good ruler and make Korra realize that, although she regained her powers, they are no longer necessary to kick evil guy’s asses and make her think what she should do from now on. What’s the point of Avatar whose strongest point is kicking powerful villains’ asses when there are no powerful villains around? This would have been more interesting. For example: Korra may have become interested in politics and tried to achieve diplomatic/political successes. Of course, the series would have changed character, as it would have become political intrigue and probably stopped to be interesting for teenagers which it targeted. But even if this series could not change its character due to target audience, I think it would have been better to make this final showdown with Kuvira more morally ambiguous. With both Earth Kingdom and Republic City having claims for the territory, they didn’t need to turn Kuvira into a villain.
Overall, though there were some things which I didn’t like, it was a fairly good watch. Although a bit uneven with different season’s having different quality. The third season of Legend of Korra was the best written while the second season was the weakest. It is only a pity that I didn’t find characters as likeable as in Last Airbender, especially these brothers who were on pathetic side for all four seasons. It also is one of the reasons why I liked the couple at the very end, spoiler[Korra and Asami. With no interesting male characters for them, it was the best choice.] And I must admit that it was bold. I didn’t expect an American cartoon to do it. |
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DuelGundam2099
Posts: 533 |
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I just finished Outlaw Star. Unfortunately most of the stuff I have complained about remained throughout the series and the second ending theme was nowhere near as good as the first. In addition to this the villains are horribly under developed aside from the MacDougall brothers (and even then there is not much to them). The only real improvements are the somewhat reduced money talks in the last third and that a few episodes had actual plot development in them. Gotta love how Suzuka did so friggin little after her first appearance, made me wonder why the hell they bothered having her since anything she did could have been done by Aisha. Then there are poor physics (no you can't shoot a gun in space nor can you make sounds in space and you SURE AS HELL CAN'T SURVIVE A GRENADE UNDERWATER!). Might as well just talk about stuff I liked since there was not much of it: The first of the two unaired episodes since it had cool looking alien crustaceans (the second one was just unnecessary fanservice garbage that had some nice background information on the caster gun which for some reason they barely went much into in other episodes), a few episodes in the second third were entertaining, the cast slowly got more tolerable, and the last three episodes were decent. Usually when I find an anime that is quite lackluster but at least has some entertainment value in it (IE Great Teacher Onizuka, Vividred Operation, Aika: R-16, Bodacious Space Pirates, Patlabor: The New Files/Movie 2, Cardcaptor Sakura, Goldran, Arjuna, etc) I give it a decent rating. This has a similar level, but what tips this series over the edge into legitimately bad territory (IE TV Rayearth, X the Movie, Mai-Otome, TV Patlabor/Movie 1, Aika Zero, Girls und Panzer, Dai Shogun, Uta Kata, Devil Hunter Yohko, etc)? The animation. It tries too hard to be over the top when it should not/is really unnecessary and most shots showing more than just a character's head and shoulders tend to have low quality to them. This was not designed by an independent studio or some someone with a bad track record or even just one studio, two high profile studios constructed this series so yes, I am setting it to some standard, ESPECIALLY when I know they have made high quality anime before and after Outlaw Star. Even Toei, the masters of stock footage, put more effort in their monster of the week kid shows than this!
Eventually I will take on the Angel Links spinoff series and this rant reminds me I should get around to seeing that Girls und Panzer OVA that was released earlier this year. |
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zawa113
Posts: 7357 |
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Recently got and watched Wolf's Rain. It was easy to devour in large chunks, but at the end, I'm left a little hungry still. I enjoyed it, but I wasn't wowed by it, it seems to be a "love it or hate it" series, but I'm actually middle of the road. It's weird as I like most of the elements, although it seemed like Toboe was the only character that really grew, but I do feel like the story over complicated itself with some things.
I didn't dislike the ending, it more reminded me of the game Journey (except ending a little earlier), or of the Future chapter of Phoenix, except I think both of them did the same idea better (and at least one came before Wolf's Rain). I feel like I didn't see a whole lot of signs of the end times until the last four episodes where it felt like suddenly it was coming, or maybe I missed signs? I dunno, the world seemed like junk, but not totally broken. Also spoiler[I could've sworn the first city they were in was a domed city, that wasn't the one they blew up, any reason why that one was suddenly doomed too or something? Or did the guys from the other city wreck it when I wasn't looking, I don't feel like that was clear, I thought they were just after Steven Blum]. Oh but I did absolutely love the dub, I really wish that some of these people still did regular anime voice work. Joshua Seth and Bob Buchholz are voices I especially miss (though I watch a lot of South Park so I hear Mona Marshall often enough). The world needs Joshua Seth more as a voice actor than a hypnotist for sure. And I think I preferred this Yoko Kanno score to Bebop in terms of matching, but not being too loud. In the end, I'm kind of left going "I think RahXephon did it better", but unlike RahXephon, which begged me to watch it again (and I only liked it better the second time), Wolf's Rain isn't quite calling me back. So I'm kind of stuck middle of the road. |
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Beltane70
 Posts: 3886 |
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Actually, DuelGundam, you CAN fire a gun in space. The "gunpowder" used in modern fire arms contain their own oxidizer.
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