Forum - View topicTheron & Rebecca's Anime in America 2015
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HaruhiToy
 Posts: 4118 |
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Before reading this article I was under the impression that I wasted most of my last year watching anime. As it is now I feel like I hardly saw any of it. In this day and age how can you keep up?
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5124 |
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^
Me? I just binge-watch based on what I read here on ANN. |
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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No mentions at all for Shirobako's second half events? Well, at least it has plenty in this thread. Not sure how that could stay off either your lists for scene of the year. The Aldnoah mention did make me laugh at least though.
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FilthyCasual
Posts: 2229 |
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Episodes 4 and 5 of 2wei Herz are entirely anime-original, while episode 3 is an omake from 3rei. None of them originate from the 2wei manga. Because the BL episode was an omake, it never interrupted the pacing of 3rei; throwing it into 2wei Herz introduced a problem that never existed in the first place. Furthermore, the audience already cares about the characters by now; it's the third season of the anime - they wouldn't be watching if they didn't care about them. While the individual episodes may have been entertaining, the pacing was absolutely abominable. And I'm not sure why you mentioned UBW S2 unless you're replying to general opinion; I liked it unreservedly myself, despite a couple of missteps. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15510 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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I... I actually agree a lot with all of this (of what I have seen). I have been pretty disconnected from critics in the past, so this is kind of something.
Top title of the year being School-Live, and not even needing to say why. It was not for any cute reasons, it was simply well made. it really was kind of a surprise, and that surprise is what it capitalised on quite well. Chivalry was also a surprise as the better of the two very similar shows that were released at the time. Sailor Moon Crystal was my kind of first time to sit down and watch something of the franchise, and I actually really liked Chibi-Usa, odd because I heard people disliked her character. And Koro-sensei was such a great character that he made Denpa's Kyoushi's teacher character look horrible in comparison. Hestia and Bell as a family, sure a crush was involved, but they were really good. And the Doronbow Gang were awesome. Embryo! God, what a bastard. Also he was a bastard god. And Erina just got me really mad. Shirayuki can get things done, which makes that jumping scene great. Elaine spoiler[death, Isla's death, and Clementine's death]. Turning Ban jerky appearance around by revealing him losing something so important to him, it was good. Isla's retirement was pretty much anticipated all season, and the end did not disappoint with it. And Clementine, I am putting it on Clementine's voice work by Aoi Yuuki, creating a character so despicable that some kama is strongly looked forward to, and then it so brutal. I don't know how many times I have watched "The Hero", I have seen a breakdown of its symbolism, it has a lot in there, and I just love listening to it in general. I often have a certain reaction to a good OP that the series did not exactly have me fully drawn in, like had reservations and did not fully want to enjoy the OP for that reason, which I think I had in both in the sickly sweet Gourmet Girl Graffiti and The Perfect Insider. Actually I Am... is a harem show, should be stupid and such, but becomes a pleasure, I was super looking forward to each episode. Bikini Warriors is kind of dumb, like just warriors who wear bikinis like the trope is not enough, although their earlier episodes kind of did a fun job at spoofing common stupid game tropes. By all right Shomin Sample sounds like the worst, it is like taking some of the most terrible parts of the harem genre and putting them together, although it actually ended up something I was really enjoying somehow. We dudes can also love shows like Haikyuu and Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE!. I mean, I kind of like a bit of the fujoshi like shows in some way, well I liked the energy of Haikyuu and the genre gender reversak is Cute High. I feel a bit like I am actually kind of found tolerance recently for fujoshi and am all for it, which kind of reminds me of my favourite character in Utawarerumono: The False Faces. {Inserted spoiler tags. ~nobahn} |
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relyat08
 Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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Hmm.. interesting. Thanks for clearing that up. Well, that makes me question them a little bit more. The underlying story of Fate Kaleid is so interesting too, so the pacing issues and constant stalling is really frustrating.
To actually answer this part of your question: Yes, these kinds of articles are meant to be personal, hence the different choices both Theron and Rebecca have. They aren't supposed to be what was popular, though many of those shows were.
For what it's worth, I'm honestly impressed by how varied the taste is between all of the reviewers here. It is very rare that a popular show doesn't have coverage by someone who actually enjoys it, or treats it fairly, at the very least. FSN is an exception, but that is going to happen every once in a while, and there was a lot of people with similar sentiments, so it wasn't like Gabriella was being unfair. |
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Izanagi009
 Posts: 464 Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA |
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Well, End of the year and boy do I have quite a bit to say about anime in 2015. Most of it will be negative Razzy style accolades written in the style of Jim Sterling so if you don't like that, feel free to skip the post. Otherwise, lets start
Fall from Grace: Unlimited Blade Works Season 2: What else can I say about this once promising series than "The Bleep happened"? Once Saber gets put into the dress, the show plummets downhill with poor pacing, worse exploration of Shirou's themes, characters being abandoned and fights that are not of the high caliber expected of Ufotable. My suggestion would be to just play the visual novel but i'm not even sure how that would go partially because i've just started and partially because I have no confidence in Nasu's writting. Worst Villain: Embryo from Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryu no Rando: A good villain in my mind has presence and threat; he is a person who can turn heads, swoon an audience, and present an air of danger. Embryo has none of those qualities. His scheme to spoiler[rewrite the universe] may seem grand but it ultimately falls apart due to how meek he seems compared to other villains in anime. The way he supposedly manipulates women seems more like a Pick up artist than anything along the vein of Makishima Shougo. He doesn't have the charisma of either Dio Brando, Fate/ Zero Archer or Johan Liebert. All I see when I see Embryo is a poor mans attempt to make a swaggering sexual predator into a villain and failing. Worst Concept in anime: the magical high school with overpowered protagonist (examples include Asterisk War and Chivalry of a Failed Knight): Well my patience with light novel adaptations has reached an end point with the release of Asterisk War and Chivalry of a Failed Knight: two projects that have the same identical starting premise and suffer nearly the same issues: bland characters, poor setup and worse payoff. Now as a disclaimer, I've only seen five episodes of each but what I watched were the most trope filled and irritating pieces of media i've ever seen. The protagonists are generic and overpowered to the point of no investment, the female leads are uninteresting in their personality or "tsundere" archtypes. The supporting cast are groan worthy sterotypes with no real development. The entire Magical High School genre of anime has started to run it's course and it makes me pissed. Worst show of the year: Cross Ange with dishonorable mention to Aldnoah Zero And look, Cross Ange makes it to the bottom of my list. With an irritating and unsympathetic main lead, horrible villain, a supporting cast that's supposed to be badass but comes across more as bitchy and grating, a romance that is underdeveloped and inappropriate framing and use of sexual assault, Cross Ange comes across as someone's attempt to make a sexplotation mecha show and it ends up being a piece of media with no self awareness, no tact, and no merit. Of course a dishonorable mention has to go to Aldnoah Zero season two which screwed with the character archtypes established in the first season just to have a boring plain black and white hero and villain, Inaho is unlikeable and a Gary Sue while Slaine turns into a mustache twirling villain. It only beats out Cross Ange thanks to solid animation and creative mech designs. And now for the positive awards: Best Villain: Tie between Jojo's Dio Brando and Fate UBW's Gilgamesh: For an example on how to do villains right, look no further than Dio Brando and Gilgamesh. Both Takehito Koyasu and Tomokazu Seki imbue the characters with a voice that is both seductive and charismatic while also providing proper malice when needed. Their actions speak ahead of them with the brutality of their kills and the sheer arrogance that they exhibit. They both provide a memorable last fight to the end and leave an impact on the audience. Best show of the year: Tie between Death Parade, Kekkai Sensen, Stardust Crusaders Egypt arc and One Punch Man and in a final award handout, we have four winners from each of the seasons. Starting with Death Parade, we have a memorable trip through the afterlife to see into the hearts of man. The show plays its thematic hand on how people approach death and how worthwhile life is with excellent animation, a memorable soundtrack, a deft performance out of Decam and powerful setpieces that exhibit the wide range of emotions and experiences that people go through. Next up is Kekkai Sensen, a fun little romp through supernatural affected New York City. Another solidly animated show that more focuses on it's action and character comedy as Leonardo Watch and the gang at Libra travel through a creative New York to an amazing soundtrack. The show's action setpieces are fun and bolstered by the over the top personalities of the cast which are surprisingly developed for the brevity that they are on screen. Top it off with a calm message about living life as a normal person with family and a stand out episode on tolerance and Kekkai Sensen takes it. Stardust Crusaders Egypt arc is a different beast than the last two awarded shows. This one is nothing but true unadulterated fun with a memorable cast, creative powers, big battles and bigger facial expression topped up by over the top animation that brings the whole insanity of Egypt to the screen. One Punch Man serves as a nice closer to the awards as it's a nice mix of action and themes. While the show predominately revolves around well animated high energy fights courtesy of Madhouse, the themes about heroism and to some extant bureaucracy help to humanize Saitama's insane world along with a well rounded supporting cast of characters that span the entire morality spectrum and monsters that are diverse and fun to see explode into guts. |
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Merxamers
 Posts: 720 |
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Almost forgot the most important award of all:
Best Tsundere: Tora, from Ushio and Tora. Search your feelings, you all know it to be true. |
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Razor/Edge
Posts: 607 |
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Really happy to see all the love for School-Live! I know a lot of people complained about it being a terrible adaptation of the manga, but me, having not read the manga, found it to be quite enjoyable. I hope to have time to read the manga soon, as I know it continues beyond where the anime ended, and i'd love to see more adventures with these characters.
Wish I had more time to watch anime so I could make my own list of best series this year, but since I only watched about 5 series that actually aired this year, I don't think I could make an accurate list. Out of all the anime I actually watched this year, Monster will definitely be at the top of the list. A 74 episode series, but it rarely felt like a grind, due to the fascinating characters and story. I expecting more from the ending, but it was an amazing ride overall. |
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kj_4247
Posts: 22 |
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so glad this feature is on-going, I was afraid you got replaced with the year end lists.
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Rensie
Posts: 251 |
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From the title mentioned i liked only Cross Ange, for me was a good anime, always me and "reviewers" here are the opposite, Martin apart.
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wiitard119
Posts: 40 |
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Just came here to say im legit surprised my tastes are exactly like Theron. He has great/amazing taste that actually understands the underrated stuff as being good too.
Theron u da real mvp |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18241 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Thanks for the clarification on this. That's actually a pretty neat logic behind the naming structure, but it's also the kind of detail that the anime will probably never delve into. And yeah, I did miss the Rory/loli thing and am kicking myself for not making that connection.
This falls under the "we didn't have time to watch everything" comment for me, and I suspect Rebecca, too. It's definitely a series I am interested in watching out at some point, perhaps when (if?) it comes out on BR in the States.
Actually, we specifically didn't finalize this piece until the last episode of everything for the Fall season was available; changes were being made to the awards up through the 27th. So yes, I absolutely did consider that battle and found it wanting by comparison. Sure, it looked great, but I thought the music did it no favors, and that was too much of a knock for me. By comparison, the music in the final episode of DanMachi was phenomenal from beginning to end. It helped mightily in the fight having a sense of moving drama to it, while the OPM fight in question was pretty much all spectacle. Would also like to know who or what deserves the credit for the sound of the Goliath's howls, and boy, you'll be hard-pressed in anime to find a better example of the grace of a female elf in action. (I liked Ryu Lion as a character before this episode, but loved her by the end.)
BBB's closer was neat but I wouldn't have picked it over what I chose. If you haven't seen the Overlord closer, watch it, looks at the lyrics, and consider that the character featured is a hard-core yandere, and I think you'll understand why I went with it. As for the DP opener? It was cool and probably did deserve mention, but just slipped my mind. But that's exactly why we asked people to post their own suggestions. Oh, and concerning comments about Cross Ange: Yeesh, I thought I was was prepared for all of the vitriol to come spewing out again. Oh, well; I feel the same about Prison School (probably my most hated show of the year), so it's all good. |
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Izanagi009
Posts: 464 Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA |
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I suppose you are right that the music in the Saitama vs. Boros fight could be better. I personally think that the heavy rock music fits but I will fully admit that part of my judgement comes from the fact that Danmachi is both a bit forgotten to me and a show I consider so average that it barely warrants any emotional response. Looking at the fight, the music certainly does lend an epic feel but I find the fight itself to be so low energy that I really couldn't be pulled in though that may be due to being more a fan of stuff like Fighting Games and Marital Arts movies. As for the Cross Ange thing, I suspect that we may need heavy enforcement on this thread soon if the old Cross Ange Thread was anything to go by. Also, if my post ends up being a catalyist for a portion of the arguments, apologies in advance. |
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EmperorBrandon
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 2210 Location: Springfield, MO |
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The first half is coming pretty soon, actually. |
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