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Shelf Life - Sending out an SOS


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Zags



Joined: 10 Oct 2008
Posts: 93
PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 10:23 am Reply with quote
Believe it or not, episode 30 actually is canon.

[EDIT: Link removed because it goes to a known scanlation aggregator site. - Key]
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PetrifiedJello



Joined: 11 Mar 2009
Posts: 3782
PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 11:15 am Reply with quote
I'm keeping my fingers crossed TRSI does to the Meister/Weapons collection for Soul Eater as it did for the 4 parts collection last year with a very gratuitous discount.

It's the only series I will ever double-dip for (unless Aria gets one). Not only are the colors gorgeous, but it's just a damn good set of stories. I can re-watch these so many times and never get tired of them.

Yes, this includes those of Excalibur, and I can't believe anyone would hate them! Excalibur is awesome! Anime smallmouth + sweatdrop

The good news is, my wife will actually get a different response this year, other than "A list of what you want". Twisted Evil

If not, then 2012 will grant me two new additions to my collection. Very Happy

By the way: I tried to read the review for the Haruhi movie, but it disappeared. Razz
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jsc315



Joined: 09 Aug 2004
Posts: 925
PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 12:13 pm Reply with quote
Looks like someone has a Dragonball Obsession xD
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CareyGrant



Joined: 18 Nov 2009
Posts: 453
PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 12:52 pm Reply with quote
"Seems I'm not alone at being alone" -The Police (Nice nod, Erin)

Erin wrote:
Like Kyon, I get sick of Haruhi sometimes, too...


Preach on, sister! The biggest roadblock I've had with Haruhi has always been Haruhi; she's like that friend you can stand in small doses, but quickly wears out her welcome; and then you remember why it is you don't hang out all the time.

Haruhi get's on my last nerve, which is probably why I don't enjoy this series.

Erin wrote:
I've read a lot of lists of "Halloween Anime" in the last week and nobody ever seems to mention Soul Eater, which is crazy! Soul Eater is filled with Jack-o'-lanterns and witches and black cats. It'd be a great show to project on the wall during a Halloween party.


I know! It's THE Halloween anime/manga!

Visually I've always loved Soul Eater's look as it's so different, so wacky, so out-there compared to the majority of anime based in the same cookie-cutter Japanese middle schools or high schools, with the same cookie-cutter characters. And yes, it looks like the people involved had a blast making it.

Personally, and pardon my lecherous soul, but Soul Eater had me at the Blair/Mizune battle, aka the Battle of Sapphic Fan Service Awesomeness!!! *add echo in post*

PS. Crazy collection!

PSS. HAPPY HALLOWEEN, Y'ALL!!!
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malvarez1



Joined: 17 Nov 2008
Posts: 1628
PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 12:57 pm Reply with quote
Dragon Ball Z is a fun series, and I really liked the Buu arc. But I get why some people weren't crazy about it. I found it fun to watch though.
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Megiddo



Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Posts: 8360
Location: IL
PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 1:20 pm Reply with quote
Disappearance made me glad that KyoAni doesn't really do movies all that often. There was so much nothing in it that I got bored. Plus I really, really hate how spoiler[Kyon just randomly finds out about Haruhi's whereabouts through hardly any effort of his own. Oh sure, we see that he's lamenting his life without the SOS group, but does he take any action after his first episode at school? No, he just mopes and mopes and mopes some more until Random Person A discloses even more randomly that maybe this Haruhi girl Kyon is talking about now attends a different high school. Then there was this absolutely pointless sub-plot about trying to get Yuki to fix the situation, but in the end Kyon didn't actually put any of that to use since Haruhi was all like "omg lol, let's totally make a club. It's totally not weird at all that I just met you or anything". Kyon pretty much proves himself to be a worthless protagonist, utterly incapable to do anything on his own other than mope, have a random person tell him the location of Haruhi, and then (dramatically) run to that location. Everybody else takes care of the hard work. Oh sure, he has to make a decision about if he really wants it to be the way it was before, but the choice was not an intimate one about just Haruhi and him. And going by the title of the movie, I thought that would be what the choice was about. But this movie pretty much plainly shows why Kyon is a useless protagonist, and in particular his extreme dependency on others.

Oh, and yes Yuki was so moe-moe copying what Rei Ayanami went through 15 years earlier, but that does not make up for the movie having not having a climax. Oh the (once again) conflict with Asakura could have been climactic, but no. It gets resolved off-screen with time travel.]


Oh well, I do agree the art looks good, but that is natural from KyoAni. Since you watched this around the same time you watched DBZ, I can't blame ya for not noticing the slow pace. But this movie needed to be shorter. I found that six episode arc (Melancholy I-VI) from the first season to be amazing, but it seems that everything else in Haruhi animated franchise is either contrived or rather poorly written/adapted.


Last edited by Megiddo on Mon Oct 31, 2011 1:30 pm; edited 2 times in total
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neocloud9



Joined: 06 Oct 2008
Posts: 1178
Location: Atlanta, GA
PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 1:23 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
It's nice to see a Kyon as an emotional participant in the action instead of a detached observer.


Totally! It's why Disappearance is my favorite Haruhi arc so far... Loved it!
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Mune



Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 374
Location: Minnesota
PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 2:43 pm Reply with quote
Disappearance seemed like it was dragging for over 2 and a half hours, only to lead to another mystery and arc about what the hell just happened. But some fans probably won't notice the length.


When will we know Kyon's real name?!
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Fronzel



Joined: 11 Sep 2003
Posts: 1906
PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 3:30 pm Reply with quote
I liked Disappearance a lot, but I think it's kind of a problem that the alternate Haruhi is preferable to the regular Haruhi. Once she shakes off her ennui she's got the same manically driving energy, but this version can actually hold a conversation with another human being rather than treating them like toys and you don't have to play babysitter to keep her from destroying the world. Also, dat hair. Couldn't Kyon just start hanging out with her instead of trying to return to the original universe?

Soul Eater avoids a great deal of what makes shonen action series often so intolerable, but I don't think it achieves that much on its own merits. I wish it didn't even try to have a plot and was just action-comedy like the magic train episode the review mentions. That and a few other episodes prove that when it concentrates purely on smoothly flowing action, it's tons of fun.

Speaking of which, all those episodes use Kid as the only main character. I wish it was "The Death the Kid Show" rather than "Soul Eater".
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erinfinnegan
ANN Columnist


Joined: 31 Jan 2005
Posts: 598
PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 3:41 pm Reply with quote
Zags wrote:
Believe it or not, episode 30 actually is canon.

I thought it might be. My last-minute research didn't yield fast enough results to make it into the column.

Mune wrote:
When will we know Kyon's real name?!

I don't think the novels are over yet in Japan, but the author said he has an ending in mind. A friend of mine has a cool theory about the ending of Haruhi. spoiler[He thinks that it isn't Haruhi who is the "god" of their universe, it is actually Kyon, and Haruhi is a a product of his imagination.] I like that theory a lot!
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doctordoom85



Joined: 12 Jun 2008
Posts: 2091
PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 3:48 pm Reply with quote
Disappearance was excellent, a real treat. Actually Erin, Endless Right isn't that important to watch before seeing the movie, the important one to watch (besides Season 1 obviously) is the first episode of Season 2 as it's connected to Disappearance a lot. I'm surprised you were able to keep up with the latter part of the movie without seeing that episode.

Soul Eater is great, but I'm not sure if I love the series enough to upgrade my DVD half-sets to BR.

For DBZ I'll eventually start getting the BR sets.

Edit: In regards to that theory, spoiler[from what I hear from the hardcore fans the idea that Kyon is the one with the altering-power doesn't work with the continuity. And I really wouldn't like it if Haruhi turned out to be just a figment of his imagination since she goes through quite a bit of character development later in the books.]
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pachy_boy



Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 1323
PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 3:56 pm Reply with quote
erinfinnegan wrote:
A friend of mine has a cool theory about the ending of Haruhi. spoiler[He thinks that it isn't Haruhi who is the "god" of their universe, it is actually Kyon, and Haruhi is a a product of his imagination.] I like that theory a lot!

That is a cool theory!

Quote:
That is to say, if you've seen the whole first season of Haruhi Suzumiya, you can watch this film

Except Season 1 didn't have Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody, a pivotal episode for the movie.

Quote:
I love Crispin Freeman as Kyon in the dub, but I hated Wendee Lee as Haruhi. Something is wrong with Lee's tone, and I ended up switching back to the Japanese for scenes involving Haruhi

That's too bad--I thought Wendee turned in as solid a performance as Crispin. In fact, the whole cast did.

It's apparent that the movie's length wasn't so bothersome to you, and it's such a relief to find out that I'm not alone in that. I sat through it just fine, and if it had been any shorter, even by just fifteen minutes, at best it would've only been three-quarters as breathtaking and emotionally powerful as it was. A masterful culmination of the series's story, even though there's more story to cover in the novel series.


Last edited by pachy_boy on Mon Oct 31, 2011 6:00 pm; edited 1 time in total
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nhat



Joined: 21 Jan 2008
Posts: 922
PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 3:58 pm Reply with quote
Megiddo wrote:
Disappearance made me glad that KyoAni doesn't really do movies all that often. There was so much nothing in it that I got bored. Plus I really, really hate how spoiler[Kyon just randomly finds out about Haruhi's whereabouts through hardly any effort of his own. Oh sure, we see that he's lamenting his life without the SOS group, but does he take any action after his first episode at school? No, he just mopes and mopes and mopes some more until Random Person A discloses even more randomly that maybe this Haruhi girl Kyon is talking about now attends a different high school. Then there was this absolutely pointless sub-plot about trying to get Yuki to fix the situation, but in the end Kyon didn't actually put any of that to use since Haruhi was all like "omg lol, let's totally make a club. It's totally not weird at all that I just met you or anything". Kyon pretty much proves himself to be a worthless protagonist, utterly incapable to do anything on his own other than mope, have a random person tell him the location of Haruhi, and then (dramatically) run to that location. Everybody else takes care of the hard work. Oh sure, he has to make a decision about if he really wants it to be the way it was before, but the choice was not an intimate one about just Haruhi and him. And going by the title of the movie, I thought that would be what the choice was about. But this movie pretty much plainly shows why Kyon is a useless protagonist, and in particular his extreme dependency on others.

Oh, and yes Yuki was so moe-moe copying what Rei Ayanami went through 15 years earlier, but that does not make up for the movie having not having a climax. Oh the (once again) conflict with Asakura could have been climactic, but no. It gets resolved off-screen with time travel.]


Oh well, I do agree the art looks good, but that is natural from KyoAni. Since you watched this around the same time you watched DBZ, I can't blame ya for not noticing the slow pace. But this movie needed to be shorter. I found that six episode arc (Melancholy I-VI) from the first season to be amazing, but it seems that everything else in Haruhi animated franchise is either contrived or rather poorly written/adapted.


Eh the adaption is pretty faithful to the book. That's why Kyoani is so highly regarded for not only their great animation but for their faithful and done well adaption.

If you find the movie boring, don't blame Kyoani but the book.
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erinfinnegan
ANN Columnist


Joined: 31 Jan 2005
Posts: 598
PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 4:31 pm Reply with quote
doctordoom85 wrote:
the important one to watch (besides Season 1 obviously) is the first episode of Season 2 as it's connected to Disappearance a lot. I'm surprised you were able to keep up with the latter part of the movie without seeing that episode.

I still don't know why it's important, clearly. I did read the Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya. Also I know the translator of the novels and sometimes he tells us about the plot... Razz
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EnigmaticSky



Joined: 06 Aug 2011
Posts: 750
PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 4:52 pm Reply with quote
I loved the Disappearance of Haruhi. It had a great somber tone, and the japanese voice acting was fantastic. The series itself to me was just not quite enough to be shelf worthy, so I would go with rental worthy, but the movie was absolutely shelf worthy. And of course, since the movie is absolutely worth buying, I now have to buy the series.

I just wish that they would have re released the entire series in bluray along with the movie with the option to choose the viewing order. Chronological is my preference.


Also Soul Eater was great, absolutely shelf worth, but I did feel like the Brew arc was weak, and the gecko ending was absolutely painful to me. I didn't even read the manga, and immediately knew that it reeked of it. Also after beating big bad they just go "It's dead. End." No real follow up showing life afterwards. Also I hate how they just tease a relationship between characters. Maka and her non-boyfriend are even teased at in the ending of Repeat Show. Really?

The series deserves a reboot. Soul Eater Brotherhood please.
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