Forum - View topicWhat are you watching right now? Why? (please read 1st post)
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louis6578
 Posts: 1861 |
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We seem to have separate issues when it comes to exposition. I don't care how much or little there is. It was just plain unnatural in that show because they were doing the classic "As you know..." exposition. That is to say, they're telling the characters things that they are already well aware of. One of the few things that I think Fate excels at is exposition due to the fact that Shirou is a dropout mage. He knows nothing about magecraft. As such, he needs everything explained to him, putting him on the same level as the audience. In Children of Whales, there is no such excuse. Oh, and one of the few points I'd give Whales is the visuals/music being alright. But Visuals mean nothing to me and the music doesn't particularly stand out. As it stands, I enjoyed Eromanga Sensei far more than this. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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See, whereas I could only stomach a few episodes of Eromanga Sensei before dropping it out of boredom, irritation and not finding the attempts at humour engaging. However, as much as I didn't like ES, I also wouldn't be vehement in my dismissal of it - ZOMG, GUYS THIS THE WORST PIECE OF CRAP TO COME DOWN THE PIKE IN YEARS!!! I didn't like the show, but I think I can put it in its proper perspective.
I acknowledge that everybody is a matrix of their personal experiences, memories, taste, likes and dislikes, but every now and then I encounter an opinion that just seems off the charts inexplicable to me and your strong aversion to Children of the Whales was definitely one of those moments. I'll be curious what other posters who happen to read our very divergent views and who happen to sample it for themselves think. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11348 |
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I loved pretty much everything about Children of the Whales, except the non-ending, but I'm used to that now and hope for another season.
I already knew my tastes don't often align with louis's so I didn't jump in to defend it. Also I have my own totally unreasonable hatreds of some series (or some characters who utterly poison otherwise decent series). Like if I could, I'd pile up every copy from all media of Gantz and happily watch it burn to ashes, then salt the ground where the ashes remain, and nuke the site from orbit. Psst, I liked Samurai Deeper Kyo too. >.> |
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Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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KEEP YOUR MITTS OFF OF MY BELOVED GANTZ, WENCH!!!
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11348 |
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Ok, for now. Once I complete the transformation to my omnipotent final form though, all bets are off.
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Cam0
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Hey, I liked Samurai Deeper Kyo too. At least when I watched it like in 2007 when I was just getting into anime and I was still a starry-eyed kid. I watched it on some fairly awful illegal streaming site. The quality was awful and I had to alternate between sub and dub because some episodes were only available in one or the other. I don't remember a whole lot from the show except for the super awesome opening and I have a weird image in my head of the characters fighting near skyscrapers near the end. |
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louis6578
Posts: 1861 |
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^ This is how most of my friends were about the show. In fact, the reason I watched it was because a friend of mine who hadn't seen nearly as much anime as me had me watch a few of his favorites which I hadn't seen. So far, I only saw two of his recommended anime (Samurai Deeper Kyo and Gokusen), but I was not impressed by either. Hell, even he admits that he "didn't remember Kyo being THAT boring." Granted, there are a few shows that I remember liking in 7th grade that I don't know if I'd like today (The original Negima anime, MAR, and Bobobo come to mind), but I'm not gonna sit here and shout about how they were "my childhood." Frankly, I'd be interested to hear your opinion if you sat down and re-watched the first few episodes of Samurai Deeper Kyo. I personally stopped after about 4 or 5 because the characters were boring and the action was terrible, but if you could help me find some merit in the show, I'd actually appreciate the second perspective. NOW THEN, as for my opinion of Children of the Whales... I can honestly say that it's probably not the WORST anime of the decade or even close. But it's one of the least interesting that I've actually sat through under the assumption that I'd love it going in. If I were to make a list of the worst anime of the decade, that would require sitting through a lot of mediocre harem shows and moe shows without any characters that I like. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11348 |
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I didn't start off liking Kyo, because I'm a sucker for historical anime and I kept thinking, wtf are they doing? These characters are all messed up. Once I figured out why at the end, I felt differently about the earlier episodes. I never did warm up to the girl with the weird gun, but I liked both versions of Kyo.
Maybe I'll have another look between seasons, but I make no promises (I already have a huge Pile of Shame of things I've bought that I've yet to open the package). Speaking of which, I finally got around to watching the BDs of Yuuri!!! on Ice. Given the changes both major and minor I'd seen online that they made in the early episodes, I was surprised that some of the skating still seemed a tad wonky. My biggest disappointment was that they replaced all but the last couple of OPs with the next-to-final form instead of the week-by-week building they did in the tv releases. I guess the latter was an artifact of rushing it out the door, but I liked seeing how it changed each week. The other problem for me was the lovely artbook that came with the CE (and making the artcards not fit inside the case). It's got lots of good stuff in it, but they crammed so much into a BD sized book that they had to use the nearly invisible 4pt font used in the boilerplate on disc cases, and I can't read any of it without a magnifying glass. I think even someone with 20/20 vision would have trouble with it. Imagine entire paragraphs of text that look like this. The commentaries were interesting, but they were not touching the gay content with a ten-foot-pole. The avoidance was so blatant it was actually more humorous than offensive. |
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louis6578
Posts: 1861 |
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Well, after watching a little more Children of the Whales, I learned a very, very important lesson. The moral of this story will be taught in schools and debated amongst intellectuals for years to come. That moral is this...
Emotions are good and not having emotions is bad and can make you a bad person. My mind is opened... |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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Wow, I wish I had the kind of brilliant mind that make stupidly reductive statements in an incredibly lame attempt at "humour." |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11348 |
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Apparently not so much.  This was a very emotionally evocative story, and your reaction suggests which of the above camps you might be in. Maybe that's why you didn't like the story - too close to home? 
(and no, that's not what the moral of the story was) |
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louis6578
Posts: 1861 |
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Episode 6!
Alrighty... so we start off with Protagonist-kun's friend... girl from the other island being taken away by some really abrasive girls. When he tries to stop them from dragging... main girl away, they do the unthinkable! They call him, and all his friends... avert your eyes and ears because this is a very graphic term that should never be used to describe anyone with the slightest bit of human decency... spoiler[boring.] Which he is. This causes protagonist-kun to cry in a moment that is spoiler[not at all] hilarious and spoiler[the exact opposite of] endearing. Oh, then the girls turn out to have just been making dresses for... Lylla! HEY! I think I remembered her name! For some reason, the seemingly mean girls couldn't just tell Protagonist-kun this because... the writers thought that making it a semi-twist that they weren't taking Lylla away to get beaten up or something would make the moment far more heartwarming. To address the complaints that I've been getting about my thoughts on the show, I'll give it a few compliments now. For every single one of these, I want you to imagine that I'm adding "But it doesn't justify a generic story with lackluster protagonists" right after the compliment. Lets begin! The OP and ED are alright... Perfect! You're getting the hang of this! Now onto the compliments! The idea that only certain characters are born able to use thymia, and that those characters will die at or around age 30 is interesting. The music is great. The art is beautiful. Some of the character interactions are interesting when you take into account that this is a peaceful society that has never had to worry about war in its life, so it really nails the unpreparedness of child soldiers who have almost certainly never seen a weapon before in their lives. Hell, some of the show's own urban myths are interesting too. I particularly like the "if you cry at a funeral, you'll be cursed" myth. It shows that this society has a different philosophy than our own.  See? I can see the merit in shows that I'm not crazy over!
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louis6578
Posts: 1861 |
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Okay, okay. So... we finally learn that... -goes to the wiki to lookup the name- Oni showed up on this own one day. Some kid named... the kid, gets into a fight with him after Oni ignored his attempt at friendship. After getting into a PHYSICAL ALTERCATION with the kid, the mayor decided to lock the two up underground without adult supervision in a cramped jail cell. This... is not how you take care of a fistfight between two kids if you want to prevent further injury. But that's not the point! The flashback was to show that Oni gained some sense of hope from this kid. Aww. How nice. Well, the music almost made me feel something on its own, so I guess the scene was fine.
Wait, is this kid gay for Oni or are they just super best friends? Not that I'm complaining! I love homosexual people and characters as much as any other, but that kid seemed like he was longing for that sweet, Oni. Like... he wanted to be BFF forever or something. Well, regardless... um... Sand Returning Day is a thing too. The comedy is still horrendous. That's one thing I've noticed that almost every show that I dislike (especially the ones that other people love) have in common. Even if I could say "I think the plot is okay depending on who you ask," the comedy is always extra terrible. Fushigi Yuugi, Your Lie in April (which I actually liked at points), Junk Boy, all of them have jokes that make me feel bad for ever being born. Oh, yeah. The comedic highlight of this episode of Children of the Whales is... "This is my new invention! It's a Sand Throwing Machine! I call it... The Sand Throwing Machine!" Then the other kid just says "That's what you're calling it?" Since I'm terrible with names, I'm gonna call the inventor kid Boke and the kid with the glasses is gonna be called... Tsukkomi. The reason should be obvious to anyone that knows mild Japanese. :\ Basically these kids make a sand throwing machine (duh) and it pisses off the new mayor. He's so mad that he throws sand at them, which gets the village in the "Sand Throwing" spirit. Hahaha! What a funny misunderstanding! Or, as Yakko would say... "Ha ha... courtesy laugh." Oh, and then the mayor throws sand at the redheaded dude's face. As anyone who has gotten sand in their eyes knows, this is immensely painful, can lead to blindness, sometimes burns the inside of your eye sockets, and causes itching on the INSIDE of your eye sockets and eyeballs. It's one of the worst experiences ever. So I now consider The Mayor, the essentially rallying force behind the protagonists... to be the biggest scumbag on this show. Yes, even worse than the Nazi-esque baddies who went around slaughtering children in episodes 2 and 3. Oh crap! Now I feel like a jerk! Protagonist-kun said "Sammi, I'm sorry for being able to laugh just a few days after your death." When my loved ones die, I can usually still enjoy life the day of the funeral, and sometimes even the day I hear news of their death. Gosh... I'm a real jerk for letting myself be happy. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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And speaking of lousy comedy, louis6578... you write in a way that leads me to think that you think you are a highly amusing individual. Yes, I can never get enough of that whiny, smart-ass fanboy outrage tone. IT'S JUST SO ENTERTAINING!!!
And can you at least try not to repeat post? Your screeds are long enough as they are, and one does hate to have to scroll past something twice. |
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louis6578
Posts: 1861 |
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Hey! My mom thinks I'm funny!
Gee, wouldn't being a fanboy imply... being a fan? As for the repeat post... There were 2 repeats (3 posts total). For some reason, ANN only lets you delete your most recent post. So the other repeat was stuck there. If it's any consolation... the... generic psychotic villain's death (he'd better be dead) was pretty good in episode 8. I loved that he was taken down by little kids in the end. A perfect end. |
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