Forum - View topicThe Winter 2016 Anime Preview Guide
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Hellsoldier
 Posts: 1178 Location: Porto,Portugal,Europe,Earth,Sol |
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Alright, day 2:
-Active Raid: I'm with Nick on this one. This show promisses to be strong, since the creative team is strong. I dig this episode. I keep saying this, a first episode is not forced to show all of the potential. Sometimes, you even wait 3 episodes before diving from generic to twisted, and... eh, was I remembering something concrete? PS: Any comparison with Rail Wars is in an of itself offensive. That thing is the scourge of the Otaku world -ERASED: On the other hand, this one shows the potential of the show right away. And good to Yuki Kajiura back on soundtrack composing too. I just don't know where it is headng from here onwards, and I think that's a good thing. This episode was tense, as a mystery thriller should be. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 19175 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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My evaluation on it is still coming. (Thursdays are incredibly busy days for me, so I didn't get to it until late. Same with Erased and AssClass 2.) And it's going to make this one of the most polarizing series we've had in a long time because my reaction was in line with Nick's. Given that our tastes are normally quite divergent, I find that rather curious. |
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lossthief
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 1440 |
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After a fair-to-poor start on the first day, Day 2 was a lot more active as far as shows I checked out. I'll have to leave Norn9 and Assassination Classroom 2 for later, but the rest of today's shows at least had more to talk about!
I really liked Erased. The magical realism combined with the grounded characters was intriguing, and the slowly building tension throughout the episode was fantastic. Visually this is far from A-1's best effort (the CG in that perspective shot near the end was pretty hinky) but the direction and character designs were nice and distinctive. Really excited to see where this one's going. Active Raid I am....decidedly less excited about. All the pieces are there for a good time - a fun premise, a director who's proven himself to be good with action and comedy, and an old-school Tokusatsu flair that I haven't seen since Samurai Flamenco. But...that writing... I don't know what exactly's to blame for the complete mess of a screenplay we got, but it basically hacked off this show at the knees. So much meaningless dialogue, so little connective tissue, and all in service of a dirt simple setup that nearly any television writer should be able to pull off. I'm hoping against hope this was just an unfortunate circumstance of trying to fit a ton into the first episode to keep it snappy, because I'd really like for this show to live up to the sum of its parts. Girls Beyond the Wastlands was just a disaster. I'm not sure if the director's ambitions outstripped his capabilities, or there was just nobody bothering to double check any animation cut. Either way the constantly borked perspectives, warped scale, and piss-poor composting made this a headache to watch without even getting into the apathetic delivery of the material. There might be a fun sitcom to be had under all the incompetence, but it has no chance of seeing the light of day with this production. Worst part is this is probably still Project No.9's best looking series to date 
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Princess_Irene
ANN Associate Editor
 Posts: 2818 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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@Gina Szanboti
I'm not entirely sure why Erased felt like a slow start to me - I mean, apart from the fact that patience is a virtue I don't always possess.  Thinking on it, I believe it was because it felt fairly similar to other similar "oh woe is me" stories, and since I actively avoid knowing much about the shows before Preview Guide, I wasn't aware of the supernatural aspect of it. It really hooked me when his mother showed up - that was my signal that this was going to be more than I expected.
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sunflower
 Posts: 1080 |
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Yeah I know, but I liked it the first time, and considered the second to be a bonus round. 
I agree with Rebecca about the first part of Erased. It was very patchy like they were cramming too much in so they could get to the main time travel part by the end. |
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sunflower
Posts: 1080 |
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That's almost exactly when it hit me. It was when his mother started figuring out stiff on her own, though that meant spoiler[ a death flag]. (Sorry for two comments in a row. Copy paste on this phone doesn't really work, so responding to two people means two comments. ) |
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RestLessone
 Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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Not much to add about Divine Gate. The reviews cover it pretty well. I think I'll give it a couple more episodes, but man that writing is atrocious. The sort of thing a middle schooler who just got into anime would write. It doesn't help that Aoto reminds me of those immature fake-gloomy/dark personality types.
Other thought: I couldn't help but think just a couple minutes into the show that characters were definitely going to be horribly off model in the future. |
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Pierrot.
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That was narrated by someone different. None of those were Aoto's monologue. |
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Darkmagick
 SubscriberPosts: 479 |
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Oh boy, Divine Gate was so unabashedly bad it was kind of glorious.
Really though, when a show is bad with such self-confidence, I just can't hate it. (I was giggling wildly through the middle school poetry jam-style opening narration.) It feels different from the magical high school harem sort of bad, where it feels like someone listlessly said, "just shove together a double handful of light novel cliches and cover the whole thing with boobs and it'll sell 'cause that's what sells." It feels more like when your 5-year-old niece runs up to you excitedly telling you about this awesome story she made. And so you pat her head and tell her it's wonderful even though she hasn't the slightest idea how storytelling actually works. What I'm saying is, I'm totally watching more episodes of this thing. I may come to regret this decision later in the season, but for now I'm having fun. |
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Blankslate
Posts: 430 Location: Atlanta, GA |
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Divine Gate - 3/5
I liked the art style, music, and direction, but I didn't like the writing. I thought of it like Darker than Black aimed at a younger audience. Hopefully the writing will improve and concepts will become less obtuse as the series goes on. Pandora in the Crimson Shell Ghost Urn - 4/5 I really enjoyed this episode; it was fun and cute, and I LOVED the music especially the eyecatch and ED. We'll see if it can keep my attention for the rest of the series. Now I just have to wait for someone to pick up Showa Genroku |
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meiam
Posts: 3706 |
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Well I know I'm voting for divine gate weekly review in the hope that Nick has to cover it every week. I quite enjoyed reading chaos dragon reviews so I'll take more hate watch that I don't have to watch.
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FilthyCasual
Posts: 2736 |
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Glad to have you back, AssClass.
It was my most hyped show of the season, and the premiere didn't disappoint. spoiler[God of Death hype!] |
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Danimeows
Posts: 2 |
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Decided to sign up and stop lurking so I could post my thoughts, so Hello!
This year I made a goal to watch more anime since over the past few years I've only watched one or two series each year, much to my husband's dismay. So I watched the pilots available on crunchy roll and funimation to see which reviewer's styles matched up to mine. Erased: 4.5/5: Really loved it! I loved the mystery and I can't wait for the next episode. Like one of the only animes I watched last year, School Live! I'm eagerly anticipating next week's episode and disappointed that I can't just wait a few seconds for the next episode. Active Raid: 1.5/5: This anime was cluttered. My husband and I watched the whole episode (the only reason it doesn't just get a 1 as that's reserved for shows so unbearable we can't finish an episode) and neither of us knew what was going on or what we watched. The main character was a brat and the other characters were barely introduced. Even after reading a summary of the episode I'm not certain what was going on. So this anime isn't my cup of tea. It had some pretty faces though. Phantom World: 3/5 I would hit the next episode button on this one. I'm not eagerly awaiting it like I am Erased, but I am curious to know more about the plot. The boob service didn't bother me as much as it does in some anime, probably because it didn't make the sound effects. Also the boob thing made me think of how the contractors in Darker Than Black had to do specific things for their powers. Stride: 3/5 I've never seen a sports anime before. The plot was interesting and the characters were good too. I liked all of them although creepy leg groper did weird me out a lot! I'll probably give another episode or two a try. Oops forgot Haruchika! Haruchika:1/5 Made it through half of the episode before my husband and I turned to each other and said we can watch something else. It was so boring! I'm also exicited that there's more episodes of Assassination Classroom coming but I binge watched the season one dubbed so I have to wait for the dubbed voices or else I'll just be confused. |
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Knoepfchen
 Posts: 698 |
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Ah, those Divine Gate reviews were fun to read. I have no intention whatsoever to watch this show, but I imagine a weekly review to entertain me quite a bit.
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zrnzle500
 Posts: 3769 |
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If you don't like getting soaked in the rain, Aoto, just use an umbrella. Jeez.
Galko was better than I thought. Not good but enough for me to devote 7-8 minutes a week, which is admittedly not a huge commitment. Sekkou Boys however was as ridiculous as I thought, in a good way. Statues as idols, so great. Tabi Machi late show's story good enough but it is barely animated. It's like watching a manga, and not in a ignorant of otaku terminology way. Pandora is better than my albeit low expectations. I'm interested in the whole cyborg thing. You can really see Shirow's influence on it. I'm not sure the best way to put it but it is very anime, in a stereotypical way, with the nekomimi cyborg, bunny girl and maid outfits, needless panty shots. I swear cyborg v hasn't been referred to this much since Archer. Seriously who puts the connector port down there. |
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