Forum - View topicWhat are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)
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getchman
 Space CowboyPosts: 9120 Location: Bedford, NH |
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Kinda bored, and not ready to go to bed yet, so I decided to choose something random on Funi's website. I chose selector infected WIXOSS. Just finished the first ep, and looks interesting. not much else i can think to say. Tama is cute. Watching in English
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Dunk_Kong
Posts: 15 |
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I am watching Tokyo Ghoul right now since i do not have much time at there, so need to rewatch it.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23752 |
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I've watched the first 24 eppies of Monster Strike season 1 and I'm really enjoying the show. Good humour, good production values, good fights and an over-arching mystery. And it's just under 10 minute running time per eppie makes it a tasty, bite-sized snack. A much better offering than something I would have expected from an adaptation of a mobile game.
Why didn't any of you turkeys hip me to this show before??? 
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15457 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Just watched episode 12 and finished The Royal Tutor. And in a quick summary I will say that I was not very impressed. I will admit that to a certain demographic I can see it as having some charms, but it had little impact on me.
A first gripe that kind of stuck through the show is something that I would compare with similar works, it is the "here is a lesson" part of the show. Which is that the teacher goes out of the way to say that what is about to happen is a lesson of our all to wise teacher, and this happened quite often. And I would compare that to kind of what Ultimate Otaku Teacher did, and contrast with Assassination Classroom, that I think it is actually kind of a lazy way to handle it, that the teacher has to go out of their way to say it is a lesson, instead that most of what a teacher does can be a lesson. It is somewhat up to the student to take what they are being taught, without artificially building up that like a switch he turns it into such. The show that was kind of doing what Assassination Classroom did this season was Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor, that it allowed it's teacher have flaws and feel like a human, not the perfect self taught, awesome fighter, serious yet insightful teacher we had here, who's only flaw seemed to be that he was short. Personalities of the princes can be subjective in how they may be looked. But I continued to have problems with the 14 year old playboy, who is kind of given a contradictory character arc. And there are a few other parts like apparently the boys being able to take to cleaning which feels not quite right. At times it felt like were kind of too silly, or too much contradiction. And on the titular character, the story it gave of his past, at least for anime viewers, while kind of heartening did not feel like it adequately explained him, and honestly felt kind of stupid with the last arc, even despite hints in earlier episodes to more. I might just add that I thought the ED was pretty catchy, so much that I was kind of annoyed that I did not like the rest of the show as much. I give a rating for The Royal Magical Tutor of So-so (5/10), overall it did not really grab my attention that much, but other people would have enjoyed it more, so I don't want to be too down on it. |
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louis6578
 Posts: 1861 |
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On episode 8 of Rayearth. I have to say that it never went too far below what I consider to be mediocre, though thus far, aside from having the nuts to kill ONE character (whom the audience's connection to would have been dubious at best), it did manage to make me smile at the blossoming romance between Ferio and... glasses girl, whose name I just looked up. It's Fuu. Yeah. Ferio and Fuu are pretty cute together. I mean, Fuu is still kind of a far more generic and unremarkable Ami Mizuno, so I can't say I like her. Ferio is also typical tsundere boy material. I've seen better versions of all these archetypes both before and after Rayearth, but I still need to see where the show is going. For what it's worth, episode 7 was a step above the rest, but in a better show, this type of episode would be the standard, not the one good episode. It's less of a diamond in the rough and more of a ten dollar bill in a trashcan.
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louis6578
Posts: 1861 |
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On episode 13, and I have to say that Magic Knight Rayearth has gotten... "better." It went from an overly generic, predictable, but harmless, isekai show to a generic, predictable but harmless Isekai show with a halfway decent romance and a few fun to watch antivillains. Let me clarify, I say that fem-Mr. Krabs and evil!Ash Ketchum are fun to watch, but they are NOT particularly interesting. Oh, and if you're confused about who I'm talking about, let me google their names real fast.
... Their names are Caldina and Ascot. And no, I wasn't joking. I did have to google their names because, aside from the main three, Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu, who I often mistake for one another, Zagato, and... Hikaru's dog Hikari, and Ferio too I guess, I seriously cannot remember any of these characters. Anyone who knows me knows that I always remember every character's name in any anime I watch more than a few episodes of, whether they're important or not. I can't really pick out any that I like except for Ferio, but make no mistake. I don't like Ferio, the fleshed out character. I like the archetype he represents. I can't really get mad at the show at any point. It's a mid-90's shoujo anime. It's a product of its time. And unlike Fushigi Yuugi, it's harmless. If you like it, you'll like it. But if you don't like it... I can't spot anything that someone would DESPISE. The music is good, the opening is particularly catchy, the Japanese cast is serviceable, though there's a little too much screaming for my tastes, and the villains have more to them besides just being evil. That's a plus in my book. I actually like the cute dynamic that Ascot has with... -checks notes for name- Caldina. The way that he relies on her for emotional support and protection is nice, and the fact that Ascot genuinely considers these monsters his friends reminds me of myself when I went camping and everyone was trying to kill caterpillars and I tried to protect them and... okay, we're getting off topic. Also, CLAMP made Zagato look pretty damned hot. He's a very attractive man. I can see why so many people serve him. He's just so... handsome. I... I'm in love. Actually, I think my biggest problem, character wise, is with the main three. They don't do anything to solidify themselves as people beyond their archetypes. I hear that shoujo is more about appealing to demographics than shounen is, so prior to the year 2000, they often used archetypes for their protagonists as a way of making sure that every viewer had someone to latch onto, but still, this isn't an excuse. That doesn't mean that it's excusable to have this problem, it just means that most shoujo of this time were poor at characterization. By the end of episode one of Yu Yu Hakusho, I had already been convinced that Yusuke, and even Kuwabara, were more than just the archetypes of a tough guy with a heart of gold protagonist and a thug/bully who always tries to one-up said protagonist. By episode 12 of Rayearth... Umi is the irritable one with a good heart, Hikaru is the hyperactive one who never lets life get her down, and Fuu is the soft-spoken, Yamato Nadeshiko type one. Again, I know that shounen anime are typically better at making characters, but I can tell you the subtle and overt differences in personality between Goku, Luffy, Naruto, and Gon, all of whom could be argued to be the same archetype of shounen protagonist. I cannot tell you any real difference between Fuu and Ami Mizuno or Umi and Mint. Aside from that... I can give a brief opinion of the plot points so far. Well, I thought Ferio and Fuu's thing in episode 7 was pretty cute, and while they could have DEFINITELY executed it better, the situation where they had to kill their pet monster in episode 8, whom Hikaru had named after her dog, was a welcome change of pace from these low-stakes adventures. Though it would have worked far better if we didn't already know that the monster was... well, a monster. In fact, they shouldn't have told us anything until the episode was done. If Ascot stayed out of it and we were led to assume that Hikari was attacking them for no reason or because he was possessed by magic (making it kind of like Old Yeller), it would have been FAR more emotionally impactful. Heck, finding out later that Ascot put the monster up to it all along, thus making it less of a sudden mercy kill and more of a case of "Evil all along," it wouldn't have lessened the impact of seeing this from Hikaru's point of view. Alas, they ruined it by letting the audience know too much. I didn't come close to being sad because the episode played out exactly as I suspected it would. You know, it doesn't help that the first episode of the first anime I've ever seen was the episode of Kirby: Right Back At Ya where Kirby gets a robot dog that Dedede secretly bought for him with the intention of having it self-destruct in a day or two. The episode ends with the dog, understanding what it was programmed to do but having bonded with Kirby enough to attain free will and genuine love for our pink hero, running away to die alone. Kirby runs after it just in time to see it explode from a safe (enough) distance. THAT made me cry even with the 4kids dub. This didn't. I had already been spoiled on how to do this plot right by a far better anime. The rest of the show up until my current stopping point was pretty standard. The girls get a few upgrades, a few tests of courage, even a very predictable "you should run while you can and leave those guys behind" test of worthiness that I saw from a mile away. None of it is portrayed any differently than what I expected, but again, it's entertaining enough to keep watching. This anime will have to do something pretty damn impressive to change my mind about it, but since it's split into two seasons and I'm only a few episodes away from finishing the first one, I'm not sure if I'll get the incentive to come back for more. |
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louis6578
Posts: 1861 |
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Finished season one of Magic Knight Rayearth. Things built up toward the climax, as is to be expected, but certain things, like Zagato's sudden reveal as a sympathetic character, irked me. It's one of the cheapest narrative tricks in the book to make a villain seem three-dimensional by only revealing their human side just before they die. It's typically done by the worst of anime (Future Diary, Akame Ga Kill, some of the weaker parts of Naruto, Bleach, Fairy Tail, a lot of Jump Movies, and Sword Art Online are a few examples that come to mind) and only a few good anime do this right (Yu Yu Hakusho technically only reveals Toguro's backstory after he's dead, but the hints are scattered throughout, making it feel like less of an ass pull or contrivance when one views it for the first time). Needless to say, Rayearth did this poorly. Zagato couldn't be more transparent once the hints are there. Sure, I didn't know specifics, but the way that the anime tried to keep it a secret while dropping these hints was insulting to my intelligence. Especially when it did the classic "character says something and the audience doesn't get to hear it, but every character in the room knows what he said" cliche. -.- I knew he said that he loves the princess. It was obvious. Why dodge the subject?
Actually, let me take a moment to list off all the "bad guy turns out to have been sympathetic" cliches that I hate, which were also used in Zagato's reveal. Bleeping out something that the character said in order to keep it a secret from the audience, having the character in question act like a mustache-twirling evildoer until he only has an episode or two before his death (complete with the classic "You have failed me for the last time" with some of his earlier minions), making the character weirdly avoid explaining his motivation to the good guys when they directly ask him about it, killing said character before this character detail can be used to meaningfully impact the audience's perception of this character, and of course, showing this character interacting with the person he was doing this to protect, but showing it at such an angle that it looks more like a kidnapping than a rescue. So yeah, nice try Rayearth, but no. This fanfiction-level characterization is not going to make me praise the "hidden depths" of a man who was willing to kill everyone in his entire world for the sake of one person's freedom. Of course, when the princess screamed and mourned Zagato, I was... interested. What is this story about to do with her? Well, I admit that the end result was a somewhat entertaining final battle in an epic setting of a fiery dungeon, but the character of this princess still felt too rushed and empty to matter. I give it points though, the show was fun to watch at this point. The fight lacked the unfunny comedy and generic magic blasts that plagued the show until now. I rate this season a 5/10. It was brought up by the finale, but not by too much. Oh, I also started watching Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal. Great anime. I think I'll switch to subtitles when I resume though. It's a pretty wooden dub. |
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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@ Blood-, although the anime is perfectly faithful to the manga I actually read the whole manga and watched the whole show and I found the manga great and the show kinda boring. I would think Monster's style of slow narrative works better in the manga medium than in the animation medium.
Been watching: Space Brothers - Pretty impressive and powerful show, I watched the first 8 episodes so far. It's art and animation are very mediocre but consistent with the show's tone and pace: It's one of the few manga made for a mature adult non-otaku audience adapted into animation (like Monster or Hyouge Mono), as most anime still is either for teenagers/young adults or otaku. I find the show's positive message uplifting and the characters and their situation feel very realistic, very like real people. It's a slice of life show anyway, the space thing is only a representation of a person's goal in life to achieve inner accomplishment. Eromanga Sensei - Very good slice of life show. The art and animation are very impressive for a TV show. And I like it's concept of essentially making a 13 year old girl being the representation of adult illustrators of those light novels. Putting children in adult situations is very "anime-like" since Miyazaki popularized the notion with stuff like Conan (1978) and Castle in the Sky (1986). Black Butler - Another pretty impressive show. I am having a good run of shows these past days. I decided to watch it when browsing randonmly on crunchyroll and I noticed this show is kinda popular but I had never watched it. IMO, there is no need for more seasons as this show's plot is self contained and pretty powerful. I was also impressed by how "mature" the show was even though it was a shounen, reminded me a bit of Fullmetal Alchemist, which is also a more "mature" shounen which was also published in the same manga magazine. |
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louis6578
Posts: 1861 |
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I finished the first 3 episodes of Trust and Betrayal. I have to say, it's a damn shame that the subtitles, like many awful subtitles I saw of shows I recently watched, moved too quickly. In the end, I settled for a mostly serviceable but overall wooden dub with some really awful standouts and nothing particularly positive over subtitles that move too quickly. My mind is more prepared to take emotions seriously when the voice acting fails to deliver, but I still understand the original intentions, than when I'm too busy logically absorbing things through quick reading.
It's great so far. I especially loved the part where Kenshin is chopping wood and as the ax goes down to chop the log in half, it cuts to a scene where he's chopping a man's head in half in the same manner. Great stuff. I just wish Tomoe's... brother(?) wasn't so godawful. I don't mean that he's an awful, petty person. I mean that his voice sounds like an alien whose only experience with human emotions was from watching Garzey's Wing's dub. Gonna get back to watching G Gundam, If Sailor Moon S arrives on time, I'll finish that. If not, I'll check out the Mihoshi special of Tenchi, then either rewatch Golden Boy or Neon Genesis Evangelion with a friend. |
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Joshua Zarate
Posts: 2061 |
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Well, I just recently finished rewatching Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and I gotta say, it still remains in my list of top twenty favorites anime that I've seen. It might've even climbed up a spot or two considering that I actually didn't try to binge the whole show in a day like the first time and gave me more time to breathe and properly think after every episode. The show definitely did its thing effectively and I still don't get how there are some people today who don't like the show because of some things that I don't even see how they could be even considered dealbreakes. But anyway, it was still good. Not perfect, but still something I recommend to those who haven't seen it. Now I'm off to something more light-hearted to cheer my mood. I'll check out New Game! just in time for the second season premiering in July, and see if I can enjoy it.
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Chiibi
 Posts: 4828 |
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Damn......still watching Ashita No Nadja and I've gotta say,
"This show knows how to be original, that's for sure." Let's tackle the thing that stands out the most: Nadja, a show for preteen girls doesn't shy away from showing how complicated and tragic adult relationships can be. Yes, you heard me. The heroine is only a 13-year-old girl yet there are all these romantic subplots going on between the grown-ups in her life and NONE OF THEM ARE HAPPY!? Indeed, these older people have all kinds of problems, from unrequited love, to unhappy marriages of convenience, affairs, deception, manipulation, and heartbreak. Whoa, this is amazing!! Realism!? In shoujo!? Cannot be! You see, Nadja is a feisty but sweet little ray of sunshine who (like many shoujo MCs) attempts to make everyone she meets a happier person. She likes to play matchmaker. Her latest "targets" are a champion bull fighter (btw we are in Spain now) and the woman he lost to another man. We go into the pain of this man; he deals with it how adult men normally do; drinking, breaking things, and trying to bury himself in other interests. He's even talked about suicide. But now his old love has returned, she says she only wants to be with him and with help from Nadja, it looks like they will be happily married like they wanted. EXCEPT NO, she doesn't love this man at all; she is plotting to use him for...........something; we as the audience don't know, but we know she's up to no good. Also nudge and a wink that her name is Carmen. If you know theater, you'll get the joke. :'D Anyway, now this once heartbroken man whom Nadja tried to help is set up to break even WORSE than before because of that exact reason. Nadja has no idea; she thinks what she's doing is best. But she is barely more than a little girl, she is naive, and has never had an actual relationship. She cannot see the ugliness of people. She wants a happy fairytale ending for everyone around her. Oh Nadja......dear, no. You are not a bad kid but you need to STOP MEDDLING IN GROWN-UP STUFF 
So yes, this show is teaching young girls that playing matchmaker can be a dangerous and harmful thing. Which is............actually, pretty awesome. It's a good lesson and very realistic and I love it. Also, I've never once seen a shoujo series treat this subject so seriously. So yeah, I am super-impressed and really excited to see how this subplot will tie up. |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15457 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Okay, I just finished off the last episode (12) of Twin Angels BREAK, what was a recent airing magical girl show, which I had not seen any of the previous seasons that this was a spinoff of. First off it was a straight magical girl series, which means there was not really any surprises, and in general it was pretty terrible. What did provide entertainment was something I am not sure if it was ironic or not, whether it was so bad it is good, or if those bad parts are actually on purpose and thus kind of funnier than expected. This was especially so with regard to the Rie Kugemiya voiced Miruku, the dopey looking mascot hedgehog, who felt like she was quite effectively used to be funny because it is just sort of weird, plus the delivery from her. I became kind of a big fan of the ED, which has a pretty snazzy jazz number by Rie with the nonsense dogs doing things like attention for the saluting hedgehog, one of which is in a princess outfit. This princess dog practically pops out of nowhere in the series after quite a bit to establish the first one, the only reason why it is in the princess, apparently it is dressed up including bloomers because it is some sort of idol or something. This dog enters the show as aiding Miruku to spoiler[parachute from a plane], and then it just joins the group, no question of who's it was.
So it kind of got points at times for what I think was ironic nonsense, and yet it actually had a pretty decent emotional story before the finale. This being by the aid of the twins, who were Russian sushi idols, that is idols who also make sushi on stage (as weird as it sounds), but also sentient spoiler[matryoshka doll inside robot bodies who want to pull a Pinocchio]. These guys are spoiler[blown up by the villain to hurt the allies] in an actually pretty dark part of the show, and yet they also spoiler[show up in the end having been placed in a spaceship weapon that is about to self-destruct, and even survive that blast]. Kind of undoing some emotional investment it kind of made, yet feeding into it being kind of stupid. And probably should add a strangely progressive part of the show is that it had a trans character, this kid show had a feminine looking girl actually be biologically male. Although even on that there was not quite full respect I think as she was referred to as a boy a few times, with the designation of crossdresser I think, and the show was kind of making a joke that a male character fell in love with her. It kind of goes both ways though as she was quite often really just one of the girls, and accepted by them all. There was also that weird girl who kept making sheep sounds. I give it a rating of Weak (3/10), this was pretty bad, but a curious one that I can kind of say that this is the kind of quality I wish I did not bother with it, yet I am actually curious about what exactly I just watched, that I might say I actually don't think it was a total waste, it was somehow enjoyable despite that and being at the bottom of my watch list. I will finish off on at least linking a picture that I managed to find which showed why I kind of liked it despite everything. 
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23752 |
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So I had a bit of a strange anime watching experience this morning. I decided to check out the first eppie of Hina Logi: from Luck & Logic. It looks pretty cute. But it reminded me that I thought I had checked out the original Luck & Logic series when it first came out and dropped it. I wasn't a hundred percent sure, though.
Since I had enjoyed Hina Logi, I decided to watch (or rewatch) the first episode of Luck & Logic. It turns out I had seen it and I ended up really liking it. So I check My Anime listings here at ANN and sure enough, Luck & Logic is in my "Will Not Finish" file...and I've seen the first six episodes. Which I have absolutely no memory of doing. FROM A SHOW THAT ONLY CAME OUT 18 MONTHS AGO. So bizarre. Clearly I wasn't enjoying the show or I wouldn't have dropped it. Especially since it is only recently that I've become more ruthless about dropping stuff. Believe me, I've watched a lot of mediocre or even bad shows to completion just... because? Anyway, it's weird that I would have enjoyed rewatching the first episode of a show that I ditched and even weirder that I have zero memory of having watching five others just a year and a half ago. As I rewatch more, I'm sure more details will come back to me. Maybe I'll even remember why I dropped it...? |
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6523 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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So the blackouts.... do you have them often? And have you figured out how the body parts got into the back room? |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15457 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Perhaps it was a mix of things you were watching at the time.
Right now, I am kind of in end season burnout, so far I am up to 20 shows finished this season. Despite I think deciding to drop things more, I can say that I watched most of the not too good shows this season, another 9 shows either finishing soon or continuing. Eh, it is like that sort of thing where you see a chocolate cake and know you should not eat too much, but by the end you almost ate the entire thing and feel sick. |
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