Forum - View topicWhat are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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Nadia is an utter joy, but episodes 24 to 33 do it few favours. Such arcs are only ancillary to the main story, to the extent that you may wish consult plot synopses and overlook them. That said, major events occur in episodes 25 and 31 respectively. I would urge you to see those in any case. The infamy of the island arcs pertains to their underwhelming, water-treading writing, and sadly to their animation also. Indeed, I was reminded of the interesting standards of presentation from Macross when enduring the worst of them. But I beg of you, see Nadia for its merits! While watching, numerous occasions arose in which I tearfully whispered how much I love the show and its mulling relationships. Moments of beauty that only a lengthy, character-oriented story can provide lie before you in plentiful amounts. |
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Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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It may not be as bad as you are expecting. I do not remember having any particular dislike for the island episodes. I think that I did like some of them more than many of the other episodes. However, I did watch Nadia back when ADV released the first brick collections, so my memory might be playing tricks on me. I think that my only real complaint about the show was Nadia's superior, self-righteous attitude toward the people who had saved her life, and were still protecting her. But that was not limited to the island story. I guess that I should watch it it again before too long. |
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Chiibi
 Posts: 4828 |
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I've heard that Nadia is Gainax's "Miyazaki-influenced" series...but I've never watched it. So I'm curious on whether or not it's true.
Any thoughts on this? Does it feel Miyazaki-inspired? |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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I'm only 8 eppies in, Chiibi, so it may be too premature for me to say, but I think I see where that claim comes from. I hadn't thought of it myself, but now that you reference it, yeah, it kind of makes sense. You've got two kids being chased by adults and having adventures in exotic locales. I know that describes more than Miyazaki but I think the "influence" is there.
Plus aircraft and steam punk technology are major elements as well. |
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louis6578
 Posts: 1861 |
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Honestly, it's a great series. When I first watched it, I immediately loved the feel of the first couple of episodes. It was so adventurous. I can vouch for it having a similar feel to Nausicaa and Castle in the Sky, but... when I saw it, I instantly had flashbacks of the original Dragonball and what I'm sure some people let nostalgia trick them into believing Pokemon felt like. ^^ It's fun, and when the plot does start, the seriousness of it never really overwhelms you or takes the place of the fun times. But yeah, the island arc is worse than cancer. I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy. It's a shame Hideki Anno keeps remaking Evangelion, when this is the show that could use a reboot. |
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Beltane70
 Posts: 3881 |
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The only reason that the island episodes even exist is because NHK wanted the series to be longer and basically made Gainax add those episodes in.
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Zin5ki
Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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Did you not even appreciate spoiler[Nadia and Jean's first kiss, or the occasion in which Nadia first enters Red Noah?] There were at least some memorable moments amidst Nadia's nadir! |
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louis6578
Posts: 1861 |
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Yeah. I know. It's a shame. Now you can't just skip the bad part on rewatch because it has important details. I hear there were compilation specials in Japan (of course) and they totally removed the Island Arc. Hideaki Anno's depression was actually rumored to have been triggered by the forced inclusion of the island arc as well. Everyone involved seems to admit that it was a mistake to shoehorn it in just to extend the episode length. And you know what? If it weren't there, Nadia would be about 10 episodes shorter. I think that would have been a fine episode length for a show like this. I always hate executive decisions ruining a show. Just let them write the story they want to write, guys! Ignore the potential profits to be made from milking a series. It's part of why The Walking Dead annoys me so much. They pander to their viewers at times when making the obvious decision would benefit them so much more. >  Daryl should be dead right now if his character arc has reached an impasse!
But I'm getting off topic. Anime. Usually it's not too guilty of executive meddling, but if an anime is multiple seasons and isn't based off a manga/light novel/visual novel, you can bet that the second season will be inferior to the first one. Almost certainly because they got fan feedback and changed their entire original story to better suit their demographic's preferences (and by suiting their preferences, I mean they basically told the storywriters "we will not fund your story unless you change it" and pandered to the whims of their incredibly vocal fans). Fun fact. Did you know that Lelouch's maid being a ninja was just a joke among the fans, but apparently some executive decided it was a fun angle and made it true in R2? That's just one of many changes that R2 went through because the fans needed their every whim satisfied. The best kinds of anime are the ones where what you want to happen doesn't happen. By that I mean, the two lead characters realize their love and rush to find each other... you want them to get together and live happily ever after, but then they're separated by some sort of evil force. That's called creating a conflict, and that's how a lot of plots are made! Without conflict, we can't have suspense, drama, tragedy, and to an extent, personal growth both among the characters and as viewers. Bottom line, if your fans are asking for more episodes, that's great. You've created a successful anime. Time to move on to the next one and sell merchandise of this one. Cowboy Bebop was great, and I'm sure a lot of fans would ask for more of it, but that doesn't actually mean that we should give it to them! |
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Akane the Catgirl
Posts: 1091 Location: LA, Baby! |
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@louis6578
To me, Code Geass was cursed from the beginning, thanks to Sunrise not letting Goro Taniguchi and Pals do what they needed to get done. For example, Nunnally's entire existence reeks of getting the moe crowd to buy the merchandise. I'll get to that when I finish my SAO Season One recaps, though. Speaking of, I recently watched the ninteenth episode of the series and the fifth episode of Fairy Dance. I have the very distinct feeling that I just watched the first half of a two-part filler side quest. Because if there was anything Fairy Dance needed, it was padding. I wouldn't mind so much, except this episode was so mind-numbingly boring. Even the big action sequence was a slog to get through! Ugh, I f**king hate Fairy Dance! I hate it I hate it I hate it! At least Aincrad, much as I didn't care for it, had this little thing called heart! This is just soulless, cynical corporate pandering! I think the fans and the haters can hold hands and sing kum-bay-yah over how much Fairy Dance sucks. Seriously, nobody deserved this heaping pile of garbage. I'll try to get my recap out tomorrow. I was going to post it earlier, until I caught the worst cold of my life. See you then. |
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Touma
Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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This talk about Nadia - The Secret of Blue Water made me decide to try watching it again now, rather than later.
I have watched the first four episodes. It seems that I may not be enjoying it quite as much as I remember from from my first viewing, probably about 12 years ago, But I do like it well enough to keep going. I definitely want to get to the island episodes to find out if I really do like them. I am listening to the dub and Jean's accent does not bother me at all. Maybe that is because I very seldom hear a real French accent. Nadia's negativity did not take long to surface, but it does seem to be mostly good-natured, at least toward Jean. She did get a bit preachy about warships and being a vegetarian, but not too bad. So far so good. Apropos of nothing, I am very happy that I can just enjoy anime and simply have fun watching it. Edited to fix a typo. Last edited by Touma on Tue Dec 06, 2016 5:34 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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peter a
 Posts: 45 |
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I`ve almost finished watching Assassination Classroom with only a few episodes left of the final season now to watch.
I was really surprised how much I liked it in the end, because it was one of those animes which I watch the first episode and decided not to watch anymore due to the quirky art style portrayed of the main antagonist. It`s a morality tale, where it slowly reveals anyone back story and starts to change the narrative as more of the plot and motivations of the character are explained turning everything upside down on itself. I consider it to be one of those rare anime which as a story to tell and in the end which makes you think, instead of just trying to rip your heart out by killing someone you didn’t expect to die, damn you “akame ga kill”. I`m going to have to consider Assassination Classroom to be worth a spot in my top 10 list. |
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Zin5ki
Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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From what I heard of it, It was sadly rather risible. Considering how certain scenes are carried by Jean's vocal expressions of emotion, it would be all but impossible for his comical delivery to do them justice. Something similar could indeed be said of Sanson and Electra. Certainly, I can appreciate that they wished for the diversity of the cast to be represented within the dub, though the effect was trivialising to this end. Imagine for a moment if Gankutsuou—a show whose English voice track I wholly commend—had been dubbed according to a similar principle! |
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louis6578
Posts: 1861 |
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To quote my dear friend Jeff on why Yui didn't actually die in the first arc of Sword Art Online despite everything building to her perma-death and her lack of narrative presence after her revival... I think this was going on in the writer's head when writing SAO. "But then she comes back, because WE CAN'T LET ANYONE THINK THEIR WAIFU ACTUALLY DIED! THEY MIGHT STOP WATCHING AND GIVING US MONEY!" It's annoying to be honest. Nunnally should have definitely stayed dead. While R2 was a crap storm (entertaining as it may have been), I genuinely think that Lelouch's reaction to Nunnally's death was one of the best scenes in R2. The initial response and the next episode when he chewed out Rolo were amazing. It helps that it was incredibly well-acted in both the sub and dub (in fact, I think JYB outshined Jun Fukuyama when yelling at Rolo). And you know what? With a little bit of foreshadowing, they could have gotten away with Nunnally not dying (even though I think the story would have been a stronger tragedy if she had actually died). And I agree with the other guy on Assassination Classroom. It's a great anime. I easily rated the second season "excellent." It probably would have been a Masterpiece if I didn't feel like some of the necessary fluff was dragging on a bit. I feel like Koro-sensei's transformation from Reaper to beloved molder of young minds is one of the VERY few villain turned hero backstories that actually works, especially for a man that began as a sociopath. Usually when a villain turns hero, he was an anti-villain at worst, but we have no reason to believe that Koro-sensei was anything less than what we think of when we hear of a man called The Reaper. Despite all this, the way Yukimura-sensei changed his life felt completely understandable for a man like him. Assassination Classroom falls just slightly short of my top 10 anime series personally, but it's definitely in my top 5 Shounen Jump titles, along with One Piece, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Hunter x Hunter 2011. I think that if they left in some of the arcs that the manga had and let each student have their time in the limelight, it would have worked better. I mean, the climax has Koro-sensei give a final rollcall to his students, each of them remembering the personal connection they share with their teacher. Without those arcs, we can't really get that feeling. Also, I've been watching Prison School on DVD. It's amazing. Not much bad to talk about. Just pure fun. My only complaint is that Meiko's boobs are... a little gross at this point. They're less sexy and more Eiken-esque. Aside from that, the characters are either hilarious or hilariously cool, the crappy concept is executed amazingly, and it's one of the most suspenseful anime I've seen in recent years. This is like if JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Death Note, and Girls Bravo all had a baby. I wanna go back in time and beat my younger self to death for brushing it off as more ecchi garbage. EVERYONE needs to watch this (assuming that they can handle this level of perversion, anyway). If you liked Great Teacher Onizuka, Welcome to the NHK, or can otherwise enjoy a genuinely funny perverted comedy where the fanservice is a little over the top, you are punishing yourself by not seeing this anime! |
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Touma
Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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After eight episodes Nadia is still enjoyable, and Jean still sounds fine to me.
Grandis and her henchmen make good comic villains. Episode eight seems like it might be the end of the first story. It is an island story, but not the island story. I will have to wait sixteen more episodes for that. |
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Chiibi
Posts: 4828 |
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Lol but nobody is going to make the ten-year-old their "waifu" when they can choose from the teenage Asuna, Leafa, Liz, or Suguha. I don't think that's really the reason. I think Kawahara chose to keep Yui for Asuna's sake.
Agreed. >_> HOW SHE "ESCAPED" WAS SUCH BS. Oh yes, Prison School is utterly hilarious. (Meiko does really gross me out. HIGH SCHOOLERS DON'T LOOK LIKE THAT.) I thought she was the principal or a teach when I first saw her. 0_o She has that "old hag" look. |
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