Forum - View topicWhat are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)
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Spawn29
Posts: 551 |
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Cyber City Oedo 808 (1990) - I haven't seen Cyber City Oedo 808 in a long time, and I recently received the Discotek Blu-ray as a Christmas present. So I decided that today would be a good day to rewatch it. Cyber City Oedo 808 is just as awesome as I remembered. This anime is excellent in every way. You have a fantastic cast of characters who are both memorable and awesome. I like how each of the three gang members has their own distinct personality. Sengoku is a complete badass who is both funny and arrogant.
The plot is essentially a cyberpunk version of Escape from New York (1981) with a dash of Blade Runder (1982) thrown in for good measure. There are also some elements of horror incorporated into it. Yoshiaki Kawajiri (the director) did an excellent job directing three episodes that are packed with action and compelling stories. The animation is also incredible, with beautiful shading and incredible attention to detail in the backgrounds. There's plenty of dark colorful lighting that is stunning to look at. I've always admired how Yoshiaki Kawajiri's anime, such as Wicked City (1987) and Ninja Scroll (1992), uses dark blue colors. His signature style is absolutely stunning, and I wish more anime today used the same color palettes as he did. Both the Japanese and UK versions' soundtracks are awesome and entertaining to listen to. I adore Kazuhiko Toyama's (Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII) score, but I can't help but prefer Rory McFarlane's UK score. I'm not a big fan of replacement music scores (as demonstrated by Funimation's DBZ dub), but this is one of the few times I prefer the replacement score to the original. Rory McFarlane's music blends in perfectly with the anime's tone. The English dub is a bit of a mixed bag, with some decent voice work. Stuart Milligan (Wonder Woman 1984) did an excellent job as Sengoku's voice actor, perfectly capturing his cocky demeanor. However, some other voices are bad, and the dialogue is a little too goofy. Instead, I would suggest watching this anime with subtitles. If Cyber City Oedo 808 had more episodes, I would give it a higher rating. If it were a six or thirteen-episode series, this would easily be a 9/10 anime. Overall, Cyber City Oedo 808 is a great anime that I highly recommend. Rating: 8.5/10 |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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One of the many things I am currently watching are the five Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba 2021 TV specials. I started doing this very recently because I want to watch the six Mugen Train Arc episodes and then, of course, start in on the Entertainment District Arc. I decided to do the specials instead of rewatching the entire first season to save time.
Wow. I'd forgotten how God-like this show is. I initially rated it as Excellent, but I think I might have to upgrade it to Masterpiece. The story-telling is absolutely stellar. There is nothing generic about the "villains" and the "heroes" are nuanced as well. The show brilliantly works in backstory that gives shades to the characters without feeling obtrusive and often packing a bit of an emotional punch. And, of course, the show looks gorgeous. I initially started on the specials to save time, but they are actually making me want to go back and rewatch the entire first season again. Thank God the Powers That Be behind Demon Slayer didn't pull an Attack on Titan and made us wait four years for the next instalment after the first season! eta: so I've got the five TV specials under my belt and have watch the first five Mugen Train Arc eppies - LOVE IT!!! One of the things that super impressed me was how well the spoiler[dream sequences] were handled. I normally hate spoiler[dream sequences] because so often they are boring and self-indulgent since the writer/director can load up on spoiler[symbolic imagery that gets them off] but does nothing for me as a viewer. But the ones in Mugen are sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignant, reveal more aspects of a character and they are spoiler[integrated with the action] as opposed to bringing the action to a grinding halt. Well done! |
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Chiibi
 Posts: 4829 |
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^ Yes, I agree, Blood. Demon Slayer is pretty great.
I've been watching a lot of (slightly) older anime recently...though I can't actually talk that much about all of them...save one that is easy to talk about. Dagashi Kashi Taught me all about snacks. I can't wait to get back to my local Japanese shop and look for them. Lol Sakurasou Pet Girl: This one has been on my PTW list for a while. And honestly, I really enjoyed it. Excellent characters and excellent directing. Truly one of JC Staff's best and I recommend it to Toradora fans. It takes a little while to find its ground...but once it does, it's a treat for sure. On the surface, it may look like misogynistic harem wish fulfillment....but not only is it NOT a harem show...it's pretty much a deconstruction of wish fulfillment. It certainly knows what to do with romance though. There are three canon pairings and all of them are fun and engaging to watch. I wish the light novels would get licensed....according to Wiki, J-List snatched them up....but I can't find anything to confirm this on J-List's site.  I'm very very angry at the cat in the last anime episode. Those who watched it should know EXACTLY what I'm talking about.
Attack on Titan seasons 1-3 Lol yes, finally. This was a binge-watch...which was rather mentally exhausting. There's...just so much to unpack here and it's actually too overwhelming to talk about. So I'm reading the manga to get a better grasp on the series. No wonder it's as popular as it is though. I don't think I've seen a more epic anime. (TTGL is pretty epic but it's also completely different) I feel like I'm fighting this war right alongside Eren, Mikasa, and Armin. I want to wait until Season 4 completes before starting on it though. Boku Wa Tomodachi Ga Sukunai (known as Haganai in the US) and NEXT This one I can actually talk about a lot. For the most part, it was light-hearted and easy to watch. Also outrageously funny. Want a good comedy? Look no further. Though I do have issues with it...and by "issues", I mean things that hindered my personal enjoyment of it...not objective issues. The major "issue" is that....Yozora is one of the most unlikable main heroines I've seen since....ugh probably Akane from Ranma 1/2....or well, I guess Kaori from Your Lie in April for a more recent example. Put it simply: Yozora is a bully. Throughout the entire show she abuses Best Girl Sena verbally, emotionally, even sexually...so much so that Sena is often in tears by the time she's done. Her worst offense is in the OVA (which is pretty skippable really) where spoiler[she thinks it'd be funny to write a fanfic of Sena getting raped.] Yes, you heard me. I don't care that it's a fanfic; that is ****-ing disgusting and totally wrong from any civilized human being's POV. Not to mention Yozora's hatred of Sena stems from the pettiest of reasons; she's beautiful, rich, all the boys want her, AND...she's coming between Yozora and her childhood friend/crush Kodaka who is of course the MC. Yozora's a terrible person and her actions are not justified in the slightest. The good news? The show/novel is WELL aware of this. The writers know the main heroine is a complete [insert vulgar expletive] and PUNISHES her for being one. Not only spoiler[does she not get the guy; she leaves on a journey to "find herself" I guess. And she's crying about it. Lol awesome. And according to novel spoilers, she is rejected but there's a good chance the victim she bullied steals her man. Haha, karma's a real b*ch, isn't it, Yozora?  ]
Her punishment doesn't come until quite late in the show...so you might think it insufferable to sit through such a long wait. But fortunately the rest of the cast can carry the anime quite well on their own. (This post is getting rather long....so I'll be back to talk more about Haganai in a bit) |
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Spastic Minnow
Bargain Hunter Exempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4609 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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Finished Index 3. It really was rushed and even without reading the source you could see how glaringly they skipped details to move the story along. Exposition often flew past my head in a mash of pseudo-scientific or quasi-religious mumbo jumbo. ANd really, how many times did we have to hear a "villain (for now)" declare a varition of "Is that the best you can do? I thought you'd be a challenge."
But when the show focused on characters and development of characters it did really well, so the final WW3 arc was pretty strong (although, can you call a two week war mainly between two adversaries a "World War"?- It seems unlikely history would be declaring such a skirmish the third "Great War"). The end did feature the most annoying apparently skipped detail though. Accelerator spoiler[flies off on his manifested white angel wings saying he has to "take care of something"] and then... spoiler[he has no wings, is captured, and is reliant on his switch again]... luckily he was facing the biggest morons of the show in that moment. Last edited by Spastic Minnow on Fri Jan 28, 2022 12:18 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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killjoy_the
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Re: WW3, we see (very little of) how the Roman Catholic church is attacking the UK's forces as well. So there's that aspect to take into account
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Chiibi
Posts: 4829 |
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Right....so more about Haganai
Sena: I said she's Best Girl....because she is. While she's also Miss Fanservice (and I tend to not like these types) she has plenty of personality and wit to save her from being JUST that. She's kind of a crybaby and the running gag of her sprinting away screaming "WAAAAAAAAAAAH" just gets funnier and funnier each time. Her father is also just as funny as she is...from trying to substitute Kodaka for his own childhood friend (Kodaka's father), spoiler[getting deadass drunk and passing out on Kodaka's bed.] He is a huge ham....as expected as an ossan played by Okiayu Ryotaro, whose hamminess I've been well acquainted with since the days of Jubei-chan And the Lovely Eyepatch Kodaka: I wish he was a bit...hotter lol...because when I read that he has a rep for being a delinquent, I got excited. But it's only for his hair color...not because he actually is one. Which brings me to this baffling fact; Girls love bad boys and everyone knows it. SO WHY ARE THERE NO DELINQUENT HAREM MCS!!!??? THAT SHOULD BE A THING!!! I guarantee you'll get a bigger female audience that way, writers. First-time watchers might find Kodaka refreshing though...because he's surprisingly cool-headed when it comes to the typical rom-com shenanigans that have most MCs writhing in shame. He also has to the be the voice of reason in a club full of socially inept, awkward weirdos. But I do wish he stood up to Yozora more instead of just watching her abuse Sena over and over and over. Boo! Protect your woman like you told her father you would, you wuss D:< Rika: Not gonna lie, I hated Rika's over-the-top perversion in the first season. A lot. But she evolved into a much better character during next. It's like they realized just making a girl constantly ask the MC for sex isn't funny so they put her in funnier situations and made her say actually funny things instead. Her stand-out moments would be spoiler[the perfectly timed and pronounced 'F-bomb' right before the rollercoaster drop and belating Yozora for plagarizing a movie script complete with an angry Osakan dialect. Let's not get started on the 'yaoi hole'.] Molesting Yukimura wasn't cool though. Is Japan ever going to learn that molestation simply isn't funny and reversing the genders doesn't make it any less tasteless? Maria: Omg I have to talk about Maria. Side-character children in anime tend to be...creatures of black-and-white thinking. Two extremes. They're either sweet angels (Fruits Basket, Tenchi Muyo) or demonic hellspawn (Gash Bell, Sailor Moon). Maria...is somewhere in the middle. She's very obnoxious and a total brat to most of the characters. But it's okay because she's extremely funny. This is because she is the most childish child in anime I've seen....next to Ghibli children, maybe (who might still be a little TOO well-behaved actually) Like real children, Maria has an obsession with talking about excrement. "Poop" this and "poop" that. Whether she is calling Yozora "a stupid piece of poop" or her own teenage sister "a poopy old hag", I found myself LOL-ing at every single thing that comes out of this kid's mouth. The dub takes it even further with lines like "I don't listen to poopyheads" or "I love you, Big Sister Poop". It's really kind of amazing to see a little kid in an otaku show ACT and TALK like a real little kid would. Because if you have kids or have ever baby-sat, you know this is exactly how they are. We've only just recently got the oldest daughter I sit for to stop saying "bum-hole". At least she was using "bum" and not something else though.
Kobato: She's cute; chunnibyou characters are always a riot. So are her fights with Maria. I do appreciate the rare scenes where she and Maria actually do get along. I also like her strictly sibling relationship with her big brother. This show doesn't do forbidden love. Yukimura: Is just kinda there but cute enough. I think certain viewers WILL be charmed by Yukimura...while the other half will be wondering wth Yukimura's true gender IS. And some probably won't care at all. Points to you if you guess correctly because I was never 100% sure until the show finally comes out and tells you. So now I wanna talk about the humor. Haganai is definitely for those who'd like to see harem rom-coms just....cut most of the drama and just be funny. They also do things a little differently. While Kodaka falls into the 'Accidental Pervert' trope, he's pretty much never punished for it...because it's honestly and truly an accident...and these characters are smart enough to understand this. Well...when it's Sena, spoiler[she trips, snaps a cluster of insults, and then runs outside screaming "UNIVERSE"....still completely naked.] It's as hilarious as it sounds. Another trope they decided to do differently is the infamous 'Kimodameshi/Ghost Story' episode. They end up skipping the kimodameshi entirely and just tell ghost stories. But Yozora's story scares all the girls so badly that Kodaka is kept up all night accompanying each one to the bathroom. It's incredibly amusing and I had fun guessing which girl was going to knock on his door next. Even Yozora ("Why are you scared of your OWN story?" Kodaka asks dryly.) By far, the funniest episode is the amusement park one...just for every character's reaction to riding a rollercoaster. It just needs to be seen. I can't spoil it here. But I was laughing so hard that family member gave me a dirty look and shut her bedroom door promptly. So....how harem-y is it? Um...a lot like Tenchi Universe. Haganai's anime for the most part, is just a love triangle....with a lot of 'extra girls' tossed in to amuse the audience and interact comically with the main trio. That's Yozora x Kodaka x Sena. Though Rika certainly wants Kodaka too, she's so vulgar and brazen about it that he really finds it a turn-off and has no problem rejecting her incredibly inappropriate advances with a straight face. But she does get the honor of becoming his first official new 'friend'. She's also the character who understands his way of thinking the best...but this is because she's so smart and perceptive to the behavior of others. Btw she's a mad scientist. My God....I think we can just call her 'the Washu' xD If Washu was a fujoshi (and who knows; she could be xD) The audio and visuals are pretty good and I didn't notice many errors or characters looking off-model. Though one minor thing bothers me; ALL the female characters look like they're wearing pink lipstick. This would be fine for an oujo type like Sena....but on ten-year-old Maria? It plain looks weird. It's certainly an odd aesthetic choice. There IS fanservice..yes....but it feels like it's supposed to make the audience laugh instead of turn them on. I was a little surprised with how far the uncensored version goes. It um...leaves nothing to the imagination, that's for sure. But this disappears by the second season anyway. I've seen people complain about the OP and ED songs...but I personally liked them a lot. The first OP is very catchy and I never skipped it. The ED has very cool visuals. The songs for NEXT were not as good...but that is the norm for second seasons, I think. So....to sum up...yeah, I'd say I'm recommending this show for good comedy fluff. If fanservice doesn't bother you (mind you, it's mostly played for lolz anyway) and you just want to laugh at some weirdos doing silly things, this is definitely your next thing to watch. Skip the OVA if you're squeamish because they do a lot of things that I thought were in bad taste (such as Yozora's fanfic that I ranted about before)
That's good to know because that's always the most important part of the show to me. A strong plot is just a bonus, really. Index franchise is also on PTW list. I'm predicting Accelerator will be my favorite character xD |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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Chiibi, that's quite the deep dive into Haganai! I remember watching it years ago and enjoying it. And yes, given your admission that girls like bad boys, I suspect that Accelerator will be your favourite male character.
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Spastic Minnow
Bargain Hunter Exempt from Grammar Rules Posts: 4609 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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Maybe the most stunning development is of Hamazura Shiage... in some ways a character so forgettable I just had to look up his name and when he showed up as the gopher member of Item I had to look him up in the Index fandom wiki to remind myself where he showed up first, but damn if he doesn't end up being possibly the most likable character. Kamijou without the power or overblown righteousness but proves so indestructible that Academy City puts a hit on him just for refusing to die.
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Chiibi
Posts: 4829 |
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I had fun writing it. 
There is no doubt in my mind 
I also know he was popular enough to win the International Saimoe Tournament of 2015. If anyone keeps up with that site...I try to vote every year. xD |
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Chiibi
Posts: 4829 |
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I finally sat down and watched the infamously loved Oregairu or as casuals know it; My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU
And I think the hype is well-deserved. spoiler[....you know....I've seen a LOT of love triangles (I mean A TON) but Oregairu is by far one of the best I've seen. I really liked both girls, as people, as characters, and as a waifu for 8man. Everybody's interaction was awesome. Yui's a sweetheart who deserves nice things. But you really can't beat 8man's and Yukino's chemistry. In the end, Yui chose her platonic love for Yukino over her romantic love for 8man. This is a beautiful thing. This what it means to care deeply for someone! People might define "a good love triangle having an outcome that isn't obvious". But I totally disagree. To me a "good love triangle=I want these three characters to be together forever or I want polygamy." That's what a good love triangle is. What a great show. Don't wanna say good-bye to these three just yet. Definitely reading the manga....maybe even the novels... ] |
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Cam0
 Posts: 4888 |
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Oregairu's pretty good yeah, but for a long time I got the title confused with Oreshura (which isn't a title worth remembering to be honest). My teen romcom SNAFU was actually easier to remember. Too many Ore- thingies: Oreimo, Oregairu, Oreshura, Oresuki and who knows what else. When the last season aired, I feel like I saw plenty of people commenting how they were disappointed with the ending which confused me because I thought that story wrapped up quite nicely.
Anyway, the teacher was the secret best girl. |
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Chiibi
Posts: 4829 |
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True .....though 'Boku' isn't far behind. Guess that's what happens when your series starts with "I/My". I wonder how many English-written books start with "I/My".
Normally when people don't like the ending of a series it's because their Best Girl didn't win. I won't pretend to be different; I understand their feelings perfectly
But yes, it wrapped up quite well in my opinion too. Though I would have liked a spoiler[kiss].
I went 'Aw' when spoiler[she told him she loved him (platonically)] You could tell she really cared about him and wanted to steer him to the right path. She was a good teacher. As well as his sister who was a good sister! The series giving Hachiman strong, healthy, platonic relationships with other female characters was really endearing. Again, probably the best I've seen from this genre. |
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Cam0
Posts: 4888 |
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It's been too long since I've seen the first season but I feel like Hachiman back then wasn't able to just have an ordinary conversation with someone like he is able to do in the last season. There was a part in the last season where he just happens to encounter the ponytail girl and just goes to have a chat with her and her little sister. Don't feel like season 1 Hachiman could have done that.
Not just the ones starting with Ore but I feel like there was a trend of stuff having its own abbreviated title and it got really difficult to keep track of which was which. Haganai, Nakaimo, Gaworare, NouCome, Danmachi, Konobi, Watamote etc. I might be wrong, but I feel like that trend has kinda gone away. |
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Nico Gonz
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I am watching Eighty SIx anime. I was only reading the light novel, but heard the anime adaptation is good so I give it a look. So far i think the anime is well made, especially the battle scenes are quality.
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Spawn29
Posts: 551 |
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Darkside Blues (1994) - I only remember seeing this anime once on VHS when I was a kid, and I barely remember what happens. I went into this anime expecting it to be an underappreciated gem. To be honest, it's a decent film. Although the animation in Darkside Blues is excellent, the story is disappointing in my opinion. The animation is incredible, and I adore the film's dark tone. Despite his lack of involvement, it has the feel of a Yoshiaki Kawajiri film. It has lovely dark shading, and I like how dark colors are used. The backgrounds are extremely well-detailed, and the character movement is incredibly fluid. The soundtrack for the film is composed by Kazuhiko Toyama (Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII), and it is very well done in my opinion. The film's melancholy tone is perfectly captured by the music.
Darkside Blues has a great premise, but the characters ruined the movie for me. None of them piqued my interest, and I had trouble caring about what was going on. The DVD quality of the film has aged terribly, and an HD remaster is urgently required. When an HD remaster is released, I can see myself enjoying it even more with a better mindset. Also, the English dub for this film sucks. I was unable to find the Japanese version, so I was stuck watching the English dub instead. I recommend staying away from the English dub. Overall, Darkside Blues is an average film that I only recommend if you're interested in seeing it. Rating: 6.5/10 |
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