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What are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)

I watched some more episodes of Hunter x Hunter, specifically up to the end of the Tower of Heaven arc. It was definitely not as strong as the Hunter Exam arc, although I liked the conclusion of Gon's fight against Hisoka. I'm excited to see what the next arc will be about, since it seems it'll focus on Kurapika's revenge

After watching so much HxH in one go, I decided to take a break and check out some other things.

I watched 5 episodes of Shangri-la. The opening scene was very cool and unique, with the MC walking out of prison to the sound of cheers from her fellow inmates. Then it just becomes wildly boring and uninteresting. It's not really clear what the show wants to be and the MC isn't as cool or likable as her cheering squad in prison would've suggested. I decided to drop it.

Next I watched the first 13 episodes of Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom. Although it was a little confusing at first, it's a very solid series and the relationship between the two leads is very interesting and unique. I find stories about criminal organizations and the underworld very interesting and fascinating. The twist at the end of this first half was quite unexpected and kind of cool, I'm very interested in seeing where it'll go from there.

To cleanse my pallate from all the dark things in Phantom, I picked up Hakkenden: Touhou Hakken Ibun, which has the perfect dose of bishonen, magical shenanigans and bl undertones, I'm currently on episode 8. I'm already a little familiar with the Tale of Eight Dogs, so it's kind of interesting and a little frustrating that Shino passes by other "dogs" without noticing and I'm wondering how they're going to unite them all in the end.

I watched 5 episodes of Shangri-la. The opening scene was very cool and unique, with the MC walking out of prison to the sound of cheers from her fellow inmates. Then it just becomes wildly boring and uninteresting. It's not really clear what the show wants to be and the MC isn't as cool or likable as her cheering squad in prison would've suggested. I decided to drop it.

I watched 5 episodes of Shangri-la. The opening scene was very cool and unique, with the MC walking out of prison to the sound of cheers from her fellow inmates. Then it just becomes wildly boring and uninteresting. It's not really clear what the show wants to be and the MC isn't as cool or likable as her cheering squad in prison would've suggested. I decided to drop it.

I finished Rose of Versailles, and overall I liked it, especially the final third. However the middle part feels really stretched with a lot of pointless subplots that yes, try to take advantage of the history references, but drag the story big deal, like the whole Rosalie/Polignac matter for example. It doesn't help that most of the episodes just happen in Versailles with not that much going on. That's why in the last third things get much more interesting with a change of situations and a bigger focus in the prior events to the French Revolution, more high stakes, and especially throwing away better that black-and-white treatment the first half had.

I love Oscar and Andre, but his relationship I loved it when they were close friends, how much fun they had and care for each other, etc. and at first I thought it would be kept that way because in the first maybe 15 episodes there isn't a single reaction that hints a romance (and COOL! Not everyone has to be shipped, friendships rock!). However, later it turns out they have something, and everytime the show focused especifically on their romance I felt very "eh" towards it, especially at the end with Oscar saying things like "I'll only do what my husband does because I'm his woman now". I still like them a lot, and even after things get really tense between them in the last arc they know how to pull back and return to care for each other as close friends and focus in other tense aspects of their relationship (rich-poor contrast, millitary, their diseases, etc.), which you can argue it's just stretching the fact that Oscar recognizes she's also in love with him, but I don't mind because they're much better the other way.

In terms of other characters, I like Alain and Bernard, Rosalie I was cool at first but her conflict began to drag and after a while even the show put her apart, Fersen is bland and all his plots weren't exactly interesting, and Jeanne was interesting enough although it would have been more effective if she didn't share so many things with Madame Du Barry that made me feel a bunch of times like "geez, are we really going to do this route again?". Antonieta was interesting, although not always (the middle part can drag a lot as I said), and I can't say I feel sympathetic for her, but that's nearly impossible which such a real person, and it's already impressive how much sympathy this series had for her without escaping from her attitude that contributed to the hatred for the monarchy, so kudos to this series for that.


I also watched the movie Trigun: Badlans Rumble, coming from someone who liked the anime and felt totally indifferent to the manga. Bleh. Shonen Jump kind of movie but with bad pacing: It's a 20 minutes episode stretched to a 90 minutes movie where 40 minutes are just introduction with nothing going on and every scene being dragged to the unlimited, and the plot sucks and it ends with a really idiotic reason to prove that "you see why Vash did the right thing?". Also, I don't know if they want to follow the manga or the anime, because every character feel mishandled (especially Vash who is kind of a stalker without reason).
To its credit, however, the animation is really cool and the world reaaaally pops up with all those Nightow designs and colors and animation, the halfway action scene was awesome; the fight in the bar, while stretched, was fun; and at least the two characters from the movie had a sense of fun that it's usually missing in these kinds of movies. But doesn't save it sadly.

Oh lord! Someone who watched Rose of Versailles!

Oh and by the way, the first half wasn't bland or boring. I don't know why people keep on insisting that it was. Tadao Nagahama may not be as well-known or stylistically bold as Osamu Dezaki, but he did a very competent job for the show's first half.