Forum - View topicWhat are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)
|
Goto page Previous Next |
| Author | Message | ||
|---|---|---|---|
Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
|
||
|
Been watching Black Butler (2008), great show so far. It reminds me of Full Metal Alchemist but with yaoi elements and a gothic aesthetic. Really loved the fashion style on display. Although some of the plotlines have not clicked on me. Still this show is very good.
I also have been watching Monogatari Series Second Season (2013) which is great. Has very impressive art, style and direction. Some of the subplots were not very interesting to me but overall the show has been very entertaining. I really liked the subplots regarding Shinobu and Hanekawa. |
|||
|
|||
louis6578
 Posts: 1861 |
|
||
|
Okay, so I watched DNA^2 and honestly... it's utter boring trash. I think the dub, which is definitely not a good one, might be the source of my disdain for the show. I didn't laugh or smile at anything aside from the initial exposition regarding the overpopulation due to all the mega playboys, which is a hilarious reason to prevent a man from breeding too much. That's funny! One man bones a hundred women and his children from each of those women (all male) go on to do the same, causing an overpopulation crisis? THAT'S GOLD! The execution of the rest of the plot is all pretty generic though. It's a shame because back in the 70's to the early 90's, I didn't see much in the way of generic in terms of what was popular. Even Tenchi felt fresh.
I think this dub is terrible, because aside from Jessica Calvello's Karin, which is an amazing fit, everyone feels miscast and bored. Especially Tomoko, who sounds confused every time she speaks. This isn't even mentioning how sickening it is to hear one of my favorite voice actors, Liam O'Brian, totally fail to emote as Junta. When he becomes the "Mega Playboy" and speaks in a "seductive" manner, all I hear is Microsoft Sam. It's terrible. I think I'll rewatch the first few episodes subbed just to see if they're any better. Either way, it's a short show so I'll finish it. Oh, I did some research and apparently Veronica Lake, the voice of Tomoko, did only a small handful of roles before vanishing from the face of the Earth. Good riddance. I guess this was an earlier dub (judging from CPM being behind it), so a lot of no names were cast in big roles because we didn't know quite which actors were great and which were throwaway guys. |
|||
|
|||
Chiibi
 Posts: 4828 |
|
||
|
@louis:
I don't particularly like the characters in Urusei Yatsura so that's why I've never really been able to get into it. Cause you're right; Lum is terribly selfish. I dunno why she's so popular. Must be that bikini. 
I think I watched DNA2 in Japanese....but it was pretty long ago. While the premise is funny....sometimes it's just really freaking stupid. Like Jinta's "allergy" to girls is gross and talk about suspension of disbelief. I don't think any human being could possibly have a problem like that.....
Larc's OP and Karin's character are really the only good things about the series. ...................still can't believe that's Larc. I'm glad their style changed. 
|
|||
|
|||
|
louis6578
Posts: 1861 |
|
||
|
I like the male protagonist, Ataru. Mainly because, for some ungodly reason, Rumiko Takahashi has a fixation for having her male protagonist be beaten and abused. This is usually annoying and frustrating, but it's okay here because she found out the ancient Chinese secret of making slapstick funny and cathartic. MAKE THE VICTIM DESERVE IT! I remember laughing my bum off at the simple joke where Ataru is comforting his crying friend. He seems sincere. He embraces her... and you can see his hands slowly move down toward her butt. He is then beaten up.
|
|||
|
|||
|
Akane the Catgirl
Posts: 1091 Location: LA, Baby! |
|
||
|
Progress Report:
While I think I've found a comfortable "once a week" schedule for my thread, this week, I'll be posting an editorial instead of my usual recaps or analyses tomorrow. I'll bring out editorials to questions that I feel aren't long enough to devote analysis posts to. For my first editorial, I'll be addressing the elephant in the room; is Code Geass nationalist propaganda? spoiler[...not intentionally. I think.] Meanwhile, I've delved into the works of ONE. I bought One Punch Man on ITunes and am watching Mob Psycho 100 on Funimation's website. While both are excellent series, Mob Psycho speaks a lot more to me personally. (Yeah, I'm on board with the "Mob is on the spectrum" theory, especially as someone who is autistic). |
|||
|
|||
|
louis6578
Posts: 1861 |
|
||
|
Putting DNA^2 on Hiatus for now. I rewatched the first 3 episodes subbed. There is indeed a large difference in quality. Mega Playboy protagonist sounds way more suave whereas in the dub, he sounds bored. Either way, it's not interesting enough to hold my attention. I'll come back to it after some particularly good shows.
Magic Knight Rayearth is... alright so far. I was surprised to have watched 3 episodes, look at all that had happened, and realize that this did indeed only take 3 episodes. After Fushigi Yuugi, I'm easily impressed. The protagonists are a little standard, and the setting doesn't really stand out, but it's only been three episodes. I seriously dislike Mokona though. He, and yes, it is male, is the worst character by far. He's one of those mascots that only exists so a cute, girly show can say it has a mascot, but too many scenes are devoted to him being... ahem, "funny" and "cute." Most mascot characters I've seen only work because they don't detract from any good moments, like Chu-Chu from Utena, have a few good scenes that endear them to audience members that aren't appealed by the cuteness factor, like Pu from Yu Yu Hakusho, or are actually relevant to the narrative like Luna from Sailor Moon or Kyubey from Madoka Magica. Mokona is none of these things. Every small thing that he does to help could easily be given to someone else. Not to mention that he specifically breaks the story's established rules just for brownie points with the characters. You can't use magic in the forest... unless you're Mokona and you feel like making an entire shelter for your protagonist friends! What a hot load... |
|||
|
|||
|
Spawn29
Posts: 551 |
|
||
|
Spriggan - I have not watch any anime in a while because I've been very busy lately. I remember Spriggan was hype up as the next big thing back in 1998 and Katsuhiro Otomo's (Akira) name was use for the marketing of this movie.
The movie is nowhere on the same level as Akira, but I still think Spriggan is a solid action movie. The movie is very entertaining to watch from start to finished. I found the story and characters to be very interesting. I find it very cool that Noah's Ark is actually the Great Flood, and it was created from alien technology. In the movie, we find out that Noah's Ark is responsibe for creating all life on Earth and I really dig that idea. I also like how they have Pentagon that wants to use the Ark for global supremacy to be a cool idea. Yu Ominae was a pretty cool character and I did like that he start to know more about the character later in the movie. All of the other characters felt rather flat and I wish more development could have been done for them. I do like the main villain and I found his motivations to be very cool. He is a very fun character and I think having look like a little kid is supposed to represent of a kid in the sandbox. The kid being a God and the Ark being a sandbox for a kid to play and build stuff. Seeing that the main villain wanted to use the Ark to rebuild the Earth again in his own image. The animation in this movie is fantastic and it still looks good after almost 20 years later. The action sequences are fast and nicely animated. Both the Japanese and English voice acting is very good as well. Overall, Spriggan is a solid action anime movie from start to finish. The movie is not a masterpiece like Akira is and I'm glad that this movie is not trying to be the next Akira. If you enjoy action anime and want a fun pop corn flick, I recommended checking out Spriggan. I give Spriggan a 7/10. |
|||
|
|||
|
Dave Marshall
Posts: 5 |
|
||
|
fullmetal alchemist, boruto
|
|||
|
|||
Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23749 |
|
||
|
After a long lay-off, I got back into watching some Monster episodes on the weekend. I have Siren Visual's 5-volume set and actually started watching over a year ago. I am currently on eppie 45 after blazing through 9 episodes yesterday.
You could be forgiven for thinking I'm not enjoying the title given how long it is taking me to watch it, but I actually really like it and have since pretty much the beginning. But, up to now, it hasn't been a binge-watch kind of thing for me and I do tend to get distracted, mostly by currently airing anime as well as other titles in my backlog. I'm notorious for starting one title, then going to something else, then going to something else and not actually finishing anything. Anyway, I think I'm over the hump and it probably won't take me that long to finish Monster. I'm really into it now. I'm watching the dub first and then, years from now, when I do the inevitable rewatch, I'll check out the sub. |
|||
|
|||
Cam0
 Posts: 4888 |
|
||
|
I've tried to watch Monster twice. First I think I only watched like 8ish episodes? Maybe. On the 2nd try I managed to get as far as episode 15...ish. I stopped somewhere around there. Might have gotten a bit further. The show was pretty good and all, but I think it was the slow pace that made the show feel like a slog. I've always felt like Monster is a show that could be really good if I could just get into the proper mood to watch it. I've heard that the manga might be faster paced so maybe that might be a way for me to get into it. Or maybe I should try the dub since I've watched it subbed before. Well... someday in the far future anyway.
|
|||
|
|||
|
Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23749 |
|
||
|
I haven't read the manga myself, but I remember reading somewhere that the anime adaptation is almost frame-by-frame faithful. That if you've read the manga you don't need to watch the anime or vice-versa. Yeah, I think being in the right mood helps. Maybe watching it at night when it is dark out will help with the horror vibe...
|
|||
|
|||
|
Cam0
Posts: 4888 |
|
||
|
Huh, really? Well with manga the pace depends on the reader and it's easier to just pick up and read than watch an episode which always is a 20ish minute commitment. I still prefer anime over manga though so I'm gravitating towards that anime. Well... when or if I try to watch it again.
I usually only watch anime after 8pm or so. It makes watching anime feel like an event or something. Like something to look forward to. I'd have to get into some special type of mood to stomach Monster's slow pace though. So I'll have to wait for that special day when I wake up and feel like watching something like Monster. That first ending always managed to creep me out though. |
|||
|
|||
|
Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23749 |
|
||
|
Here's the excerpt that notes the manga/anime similarity from Carl Kimlinger's Jan. 4th, 2010 review of Monster DVD Box Set 1 (the only one that Viz put out in its abortive North American Monster anime release):
Full review here Last edited by Blood- on Mon Jun 19, 2017 4:16 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|||
|
|||
|
louis6578
Posts: 1861 |
|
||
|
My brother and I are about to see Makoto Shishio vs Kenshin. On my rewatch, I noticed a few things and am now able to form a clear opinion on a lot of the goings on. So... first off, I did like Kenshin's training with his master, though I'm a little iffy about the copout of the technique not killing him. It's more excusable thanspoiler[ Genkai's death] being reversed though.
First off, I admit that the fighting between Kaoru, Yahiko, Misao, and Kenshin's master and the Shishio guys that Kenshin's group wasn't preoccupied with is a little more tolerable the second time around. The first time I watched this I was angry that we were wasting our time with side characters that I didn't care for getting an obligatory "See!? We can fight too!" moment. These types of fights, where the supporting cast gets thrown a bone, are appreciated in shows like, say, Naruto, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Bleach, Dragonball, and even Fairy Tail at times, because those shows have characters that feel underutilized. Rock Lee, Shikamaru, and Kiba are still talented Ninjas even if they're overshadowed by Naruto and the like. It would make sense that they could take down a major enemy or two since their progress of improvement would slip under the audience's radar. Such moments would be rare triumphs for them and fans of them from the audience. This is not the case for Kaoru's team because, well, Shishio's group was built up to be incredibly powerful and dangerous. Kaoru, Yahiko, and Misao are all incredibly weak and have failed to win a single fight against a named character up until this point. As such, to have them go up against trained killers like the ones Shishio supposedly has and win is a bit insulting. To put it one way, it doesn't make Kaoru and the others seem strong. It makes Shishio's group seem weak. If you ask me, it just tells me that Shishio sent the wrong guys. If just ONE of the people that Kenshin's group fought ended up going to Kyoto instead of the elite fodder, I guarantee that they would have slaughtered Team Kaoru long before Kenshin's sensei showed up and been back in time to fight Kenshin's team without any major changes to that side of things. Sadly, Kenshin's master didn't really get a good fight out of the giant dude. It was incredibly predictable that he would win, sure, but he fought the one member of Shishio's group who we've never really seen before. His personality is the only one that wasn't already established, which is a real shame because Shishio's group has some of the better villains from 90's Jump anime. It feels like the ones who went to Team Kaoru only exist to give that group of characters someone to fight, and to think that Shishio's top men could be defeated by incredibly weak characters is kind of sad. It's like if while the Z-fighters fought Vegeta and Nappa, a couple of Saibamen with one-note personalities fought Master Roshi, Chichi, Oolong, and the World Tournament Announcer... and were defeated by them. Again, these fights were better on rewatch because I knew they weren't going to last too long, but I still feel they were unnecessary and weakened Shishio's group's threat level on the whole. Oh, and Aoshi vs Kenshin was mostly boring dialogue about how Aoshi is "better than this." It only works if you care about Aoshi, and otherwise, it feels very slow-paced, and the fact that we know nothing about the Oniwaban group makes it feel very empty. I can't say much about Aoshi that I haven't said before, but I think an interesting missed plot point would be if he sincerely joined Shishio's group for some reason (perhaps disliking that the Meiji Government allowed corrupt people to get weapons because a mere criminal killed his guys with a machine gun), and attacked Team Kaoru (and by extension, Misao), leading to some potentially interesting conflict, but oh well. Thankfully, Anji, Usui, and Soujirou are all given a great amount of characterization, depth, and intensity for their conflicts with Sanosuke, Saito, and Kenshin respectively. Anji was a great anti-villain, Usui was pretty standard but interesting in the depths he showed during his battle with Saito, and Soujiro was probably one of the best written characters in the entire show. Not much to add, except that maybe their sad backstories were a little too conveniently tragic, but honestly, real life humans can do pretty awful things. I guess it's not too out there for Soujrio's family to be godawful. Regardless, his gradual breakdown throughout the fight due to his inability to accept that Kenshin's philosophy might be valid was interesting. Definitely, these parts of the Kyoto arc were some of the better things out of 90's shounen. It doesn't stand up to Enies Lobby arc from One Piece or the Chunin Exams from the first series of Naruto, but it's better than most arcs from anything of its time besides Yu Yu Hakusho and Dragonball. That's.. something I guess. 
|
|||
|
|||
killjoy_the
 Posts: 2459 |
|
||
|
I watched 21 episodes of Monster before getting tired of its slow pace and read the manga instead. Up until that point, at least, it was pretty much exactly the same except very slow and with no particularly good animation or soundtrack, so there was no point watching the anime for me.
|
|||
|
|||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group