Forum - View topicThe Stream - Swim City
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halochief_90
 Posts: 466 Location: Canada |
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Quite surprising list there. I'm enjoying the Eccentric Family well enough, but I feel there are too many cultural references going over my head to fully enjoy it.
I was one of those who may have foolishly judged Gatchaman Crowds on the first episode. Might have to give it another shot. Silver Spoon feels like it has a good story there but it just seems like such a lazy production all the time. I don't why a show that was destined to be a hit looks so cheap. Have given up on the original Rozen Maiden six episodes in, I am very surprised at how much I'm enjoying Zuruckspulen. Like how Bamboo related Watamote to high school, Zuruckspulen is very much like my college life. It gives off this vibe where the main character is just wandering aimlessly through his lonely days as a college student. A feeling I'm all too familiar with. Unfortunately, the show seems to have lost this completely now that the dolls have taken center stage in the last few episodes. |
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Maidenoftheredhand
 Posts: 2633 |
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The thing is the way Eccentric Family dealt with a similar issue was so whimsical and philosophical that it didn't deal with it in a realistic way. In that sense I think Silver Spoon did a better job of making me think about my decisions to eat meat and so forth. Eccentric Family really did not because what it is saying doesn't apply to me. And of course in real life animals don't have a voice like they do in Eccentric Family. They can't accept their place on our plate. As I said earlier Eccentric Family is probably my favorite of the season so the above is not a criticism of its different approach at all. In fact I love how whimsical and philosophical it is. I don't even think it is ultimately trying to do the same thing as Silver Spoon. |
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trilaan
 Posts: 1054 Location: Texas |
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Kenjiro may just be shaping up to be my favorite crossdressing male character of all time. Also loving The Eccentric Family and others.
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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Go find a copy of Hataraki Man. It has all those elements, too, plus a terrific, world-weary performance by Tanaka Rie in the lead role. I've been onboard with Gatchaman and The Eccentric Family all season. The performances in both shows are top-notch. The writing can be a little variable from episode to episode, especailly in Gatchaman, but both shows are quite rewarding. I watched and enjoyed a few episodes of Silver Spoon and plan to return to it again. I like some of the Gatchaman OST, but I'm awaiting the sound track to Eccentric Family to be released next month. It is full of subtle melodies that totally fit the nuanced story that show tells. I don't why I lost interest in Sunday without God, but it happened near the end of the second arc. Even though Ai is the very model of a moe girl you can't help but want to protect, there is something about her character that kept me from getting attached. I, too, would have liked to hear Bamboo's comments about the Mr. Hibbit segment in Space Brothers. Bamboo, congratulations on passing your thesis defense! Would you like to share with us what it was about, or your field? |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23762 |
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I'm finding the summer season solidly entertaining, but The Eccentric Family and Watamote are particular favourites of mine. Sentai already has Watamote, but The Eccentric Family is still unlicensed in NA. It seems a natural for NISA, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if they scoop it up at some point.
Totally agree with Bamboo's decision to cut a show off at the 52 eppie mark. In fact, I don't think many people would mind if she used the two-cours yard stick as the cut off (i.e. between 24-26 eps). |
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Durga
 Posts: 103 |
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Unless Eccentric Family is suddenly horrible in its last two episodes, it'll easily be my favorite anime of the year. Such greatly written characters and subtle maturity in this show.
I'm actually not watching all that much this season. Have yet to watch Genshiken 2 because I need to finish the actual second season first (it's sitting on my shelf begging to be watched). I dropped Watamote and Gatchaman Crowds. I love Tomoko, but I can't bare to watch 12 episodes of her repeating the same mistakes over and over again, and episode 4 left enough of a bad taste in my mouth that it felt like a good point to stop. From what I know from the manga, the series will pretty much just be episodic failure and breakdowns, and for some that's fine, but if's there's not going to be any progress for Tomoko it almost seems like a waste. I'd made it fair amount of way through Gatchaman Crowds before dropping it because I really cannot stand Hajime, and there are other characters in the show who just feel pointless. Rui and the Crowds sub-plot was the best part of the show and could have easily been its own series, why not do that so I don't have to waste time with these characters I don't care about? So that brings my current list to this: 1. Eccentric Family 2. Free! 3. Attack on Titan 4. Silver Spoon 5. Love Lab (just started catching up on this one now that it's on Crunchyroll) Special mention to Yamishibai for being a pretty good series of short ghost stories with a neat art style. |
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phia_one
Posts: 1657 Location: Pennsylvania |
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Wow, I actually forgot that Brothers Conflict even existed. Anyway...
I haven't watched The Eccentric Family, Watamote or Gatchaman Crowds yet. I have been watching Free and Sunday without God. Free is all right, but I have to say that the reason that I haven't dropped it yet are Gou and Seijuurou. I'm really enjoying Sunday without God and I have a strong feeling that it'll be a must own title for me. I tried watching ServantxService but I barely made it through the first episode.[/b] |
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RyanSaotome
 Posts: 4210 Location: Towson, Maryland |
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I'm enjoying this season quite a bit so far. My top 10 would go:
1.Monogatari Second Season - A good continuation of the series so far. The first arc focusing on Tsubasa was kind of dull, but the most recent arc with Araragi and Shinobu as the leads was great. They could be the best duo in anime. 2. Fate/Kaleid Prisma Illya - Its a freaking Fate magical girl show, of course it would be awesome. Illya didn't get enough love in the actual game with her canned route, so I love seeing her as a main character for once. Great fights, best episode of any show this year (Ep 6) and lots of moe makes this a keeper. 3. Hyperdimension Neptunia - I love this game series, its one of my favorites of this gen.. and its adapted very well to anime. The Tsunako art isn't as perfectly adapted as it was in Date a Live, but its still very good. Its funny, has great girls and an all-star cast of seiyuu, so theres nothing to not like here. 4. The World God Only Knows Goddess Arc - Wow, I never knew this show could be so good. The first two seasons were alright, but never interested me too greatly, but this third season has had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. I'm loving all of the love triangle stuff and getting deep into whats happening behind the scenes. If only the rest of the manga was animated up to this point... 5. Silver Spoon - Its a nice relaxing show with a lot of the FMA humor I love. I'm actually surprised I like this show as much as I do, since I only gave it a chance in the first place since I love FMA... but even without the battle shonen stuff, its got a lot of charm and its fun learning new stuff about farms each episode. 6. High School DxD New - Well, its High School DxD. Of course its going to be good. Its still not as good as the first series, though. 7. Love Lab - Best animated show of the season (sorry, Free!). The girls are good and it funny as well. Has some issues with trying to force drama too much but thats my only issue. 8. Danganronpa - Its a solid show, but its being rushed a bit too much compared to the original game. Still, its Danganronpa so its only so bad it can be in anime, similar to Persona 4. 9. Kiniro Mosaic - 2moe4me. I actually disagree with the Stream saying the first episode was the best... I really didn't like it and I was worried the whole series would be like that. I went into it for moe, not deep story stuff. I'm glad it shifted back to traditional moe after that though. 10. Ro-Kyu-Bu SS - http://www.otakustudy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/right.....jpg |
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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Disappointing that Bamboo didn't watch Love Lab as it is easily my favorite of the season. Though I'm not watching too much else. Just Illya, Genshiken Nidaime,and Kaminai all of which are serviceable and entertaining but don't have nearly the amount of entertainment value as Love Lab for me. I dropped C3-bu after I figured that Gainax had no idea what it was doing with it (after the school festival to be specific). Still, to have 4 shows to watch makes it a pretty good Summer season for me.
But you should definitely check out Love Lab as it's on Crunchyroll right now Bamboo. Best comedy of the season and some of the best animation as well. |
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EighteenSky
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I was thinking the same about the pacing. Beyond irritating, the near 3 min recap at the beginning of an episode to recap what's gone before almost every episode is taking it too far. DxD New has been my fave of the summer, can't get enough of Issei and Rias, not quite hit the heights of season 1 though. The new characters that have joined are equally enjoyable, the character development and plot progression, foreshadowing have my hopes up though. Hope we get more seasons. Gatchaman Crowds has been my second fave. All the characters are utterly brilliant and I never found Hajime to be irritating, the opposite in fact. The soundtrack is fantastic. Dogs & Scissors rounds off my top 3 of summer. Find the premise unique, it's hilarious and he cast are suitably fun. Have enjoyed all that I've watched this summer, even Brothers Conflict. C3-Bu and Fantasista Doll are the weakest though. The former rather predictable and the main character has become annoying. The latter is fine with moments of joy but they're not too often. |
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FenixFiesta
Posts: 2581 |
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It is amusing because Fantasista Dolls and Daybreak Illusion are shows that follow the modern magical girl formula very closely, yet it seems because Daybreak is trying to be "dark and edgy" people give it a pass and because FD is "light hearted and (supposedly) aimed to sell the merch (even though BOTH series are aimed to sell the target audience merch in the long run)" it gets a fail.
I found that Daybreak seems to screw up many of the concepts that allow such a series to work (except it isn't failing in one of those over the top entertaining ways), even ones trying to do execute a "dark tone", and as such I am drudging along to see how it finishes. The "weakness" of Fantasista Dolls is that it doesn't take its concept seriously enough, effectively the Dolls are military grade weapons and all the unwitting doll users are beta testers to see how practical a ridiculously advanced artificial intelligence system is, instead the series simply is yet another slice of bread off the big loaf of what people expect Magical Girl series to be. to throw in a third series, Prisma Illya handles both sides of light and dark aspects of the magical girl concept much more effectively, the series opens up with presenting that Illya is a "normal" sitcom anime girl and after a few comedic events she ends up on a battlefield in the fight of her life. The issue with DI is that even when there are supposed to be "breather moments" the atmosphere seems to be doom and gloom, and of course in FD case even though the battles are trying to be "taken seriously" for its context the atmosphere becomes overly happy and pretty much hand waves the nature that "we all could have been killed" at a moments notice. I can see why someone might not like FD, DI, and hell there are plenty of personal reasons someone might not like Prisma Illya, yet to go dismiss either FD or DI and not simply toss both is a strange concept. |
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sainta
 Posts: 989 |
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Hahahaha! Man, your taste in women sure is interesting to say the least, Bamboo 
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trilaan
Posts: 1054 Location: Texas |
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The female Titan IS a Hot. Steamy....L-----------ady.
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HitokiriShadow
 Posts: 6251 |
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Sunday Without God's first episode was reeeeeally bad, to the point that even though it was one of the first shows of the season I watched, I dropped it immediately (though at least I finished that one, InuHasa was even worse and Servant x Service was completely boring, so I didn't even make it half-way through either of those).
Regarding Prisma Illya, just FYI since most people probably expect it to be 12/13 episodes... but it's only 10. Which makes me sad, because it's definitely one of my favorites this season. Here's hoping we get another, I hear the subsequent manga series(/arc) blows it out of the water. I've found myself somewhat ambivalent to Day Break Illusion for the most part, but the most recent episodes have been notably more interesting. Agree with Bamboo on Kinmosa, first episode was great, the rest haven't come close to it, though they've been sufficiently cute and entertaining enough to keep me watching and entertained. Hyperdimension Neptunia... I'm quite enjoying the show, but I'm already a fan of the games. That said... it IS designed to stand on its own. In fact, it takes a few episodes to introduce the characters, then kinda sorta adapts the Mk2 storyline and then basically does a remix of V's storyline. This really is just like the games. While V actually does have a decent story, the focus is on the back-and-forth banter, fanservice, and relentlessly violating the 4th wall.
Not really, since this is a new story, unrelated to any of the games, and their exact relationships change in each new story. Some of them even get notable personality alterations (particularly Blanc between the first game and Mk2). |
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Megiddo
Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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I'm not sure how anybody could say that Sunday Without God's first episode "really bad". It brought up an interesting world where death no longer releases the 'soul' (or whatever concept you want to go with) from the body. Not only that, but the first episode even showed how the dead were even spoiler[willing to deceive a small child] to continue in this plane of existence. It was everything in a first episode that I could hope for. It had a hook at the end, obviously, it had plenty of world building, and it was interesting. What the hell else could one want?
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