Katanagatari

Currently on episode 4.

Oz wrote:The last one, Bakeneko, is a really intense experience.

You have seen the spin-off series Mononoke? Or is that a treat still in store?

Mr. Tines wrote:You have seen the spin-off series Mononoke? Or is that a treat still in store?

I've heard about it, but I haven't seen it yet. It's the 7th series that was featured on noitaminA and I'm still watching the 4th show (Jyu Oh Sei). I'm watching these shows chronologically. I'm looking forward to Mononoke now that I have seen Bakeneko.

Mr. Tines wrote:So, to fill in what looks to be a very thin winter quarter, I'm resuming the original Mobile Suit Gundam, from where I left it off a couple of years ago.

you should stick to the movie trilogy imo. too much LOOK AT THIS NEW MECHA WHICH WILL BE HITTING STORES THIS WEEK BTW in the show for my taste

Mr. Tines wrote:I'm sure you could have worded that rather more emolliently.

I didn't because I wasn't serious and just wanted to snark at toe_mash - more emollient wording would've been counterproductive :P

drinian wrote:Mainly Kyon's reactions, especially at the beginning, seemed out of character to me -- especially given all he'd been through up to that point. He usually seems to be less of an idiot. I feel like the acting style changed to match that of Japanese melodramas, since this was a little more serious than the usual Haruhi fare. Also, the dialogue in those The End of Haruhi introspective bits wasn't great, to say the least. Much more could've been made of it. Presumably this is a reflection of the source material.

I watched Disappearance for the first time immeaditly after finishing Haruhi's second season and the flow of character continuity was flawless - I certainly didn't think there was any OOC in the film..expect, of course, Yuki :P

drinian wrote:Most importantly, though, why do we only get ponytail Haruhi in an alternate universe?

Delicious long haired Haruhi + delicious ponytail Haruhi at the same time = MY BODY WAS NOT READY

BrikHaus wrote:Finally got around to watching Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. Really good stuff. I know there are more light novels, but this seems like the best place to end the series. It's too bad the second season was so terrible, because otherwise this would be God-tier anime.

I think second season was ok apart from Endless Eight...which unfortunately was about 1/3 of the whole season.

Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody was great and The Sigh arc was pretty good too.

Sometimes I wonder if Kyoani dragged EE on for so long so that they could do Disappearance as a film instead of as a part of S2.

I really don't get why you consider it a perfect place to end the series as none of teh mystaries or plot threads are truly resolved here: on the contrary, they're accelerated much further and the film leaves many questions open towards the ending. It isn't even completely conclusive on its own narrative, not to mention the whole series.

Ornette wrote:I thought it was a little long, but otherwise really well done. I wasn't prepared to invest 4 hours into watching a movie and ended up passing out near the end somewhere.

Uhh, I'm pretty sure Disappearance was only around 3 hours, not 4...

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:So, I'm trying to watch K-ON.

First season's nice but it's the second season where K-ON!! really starts to shine and becomes genuinely damn good.

AchtungAffen wrote:I'm watching Conan too, and it's really awesome. More considering when it was done and compared to other animé of that time. But, have you already seen the Lupin TV series, Heidi or Dog of Flanders? Or just Miyazaki's main directing roles. I believe Miyazaki worked in a lot of the animated versions of Amicis's "Cuore" stories. I've seen some of them when I was a child, they were common on TV. In fact, Cuore is one of the few books that they had us read in elementary.

I was only counting stuff Miyazaki directed: I've even seen those first 8 eps of Sherlock Hound as a kid on tv so I could count those too.

Well wait, there still IS something.

I haven't seen that two-ep story Miyazaki directed for Lupin tv series, the one with flying machines, laputaesque robots etc. that was the first completely "Miyazaki" thing in anime world.

And Conan is absolutely stunning, especially when one remembers its age. And it just gets better and better.

The animation quality and sheer control of each element of the anime Miyazaki showcases is wondrous. There's not a single bad frame or QUALITY moment in this tv anime from 1979 - something most (if any) shows even today can say. It really shows Miyazaki's unique work morale: he propably went over all key frames of every episode like he'd do with his films 'till Spirited Away when he simply started to get too old for that.

Merridian wrote:Finished Katanagatari. It was good.

I was lolwutin' at the lame reaction before I saw you gave it 9 on MAL.

What's up with understatement?

Oz wrote:Kimi ni Todoke: Immediately became one of my all time favorite shows. Shoujo anime cliches turned upside down and used extremely well.

Now as much as I HHHHNNNNGGG and go SPARKLES AND BUBBLES over Kimi ni Todoke and call it BEST SHOUJO ROMANCE EVER MADE and ONE OF THE BEST ANIME EVER MADE and call it healing balsam for wounded souls it most certainly doesn't do one thing: turn shoujo cliched upside down.

Kimi ni Todoke follows pretty much EVERY rule in the book of shoujo writing and doesn't subvert anything.

Arguably that's big part why it is so phenomenal: it's such a perfectly told classic story and it gets its strenght from good usage of all these tropes. It's extremely well performed variation of seemingly immortal melody.


***********************

Anyway, I got in the nastier mood I predicted earlier and dropped Squid Girl to 8, Soremachi to 6 and Zakuro's final score ended up 7 instead of 8 which seemed absolutely certain till the final episode... This season is huge headache because many shows are ones with which I'd instinctively give *.5 ratings. Squid Girl and OreImo are 8.5, Zakuro 7.5... so it's hard to decide what I'll give in the end because I don't give away half points.

I've watched a lot of other stuff too, including my extremely masochistic project of seeing all films/OVAs by Masami Obari which as of now has led me into watching futa/piss/rape mahou shoujo hentai in spirit of cutey honey with some of the fugliest character designs imaginable. What a joy.

Instead of tormenting you with detailed accounts of this journey (which you will get one day, I promise you dear EGFers) I'm writing summary on this season's titles so far:

Bakuman

Best thing about this extremely slow moving and boring piece is GG's trolling. First they did the most awesome thing possible with ep 12, then they dropped it and caused epic shitstorm in comment section which led them to define what they consider good anime - standards I find very refined and agreeable

Bakuman would be fine show if

a) it didn't move at snail's pace. Animating one chapter of manga per episode has to be one of the worst decisions ever (usually anime adapts 3 chapters of manga per episode).
b) they'd emphatize the HOT BLOODED MANLY MANGA MAKING that is the crux of things instead of beyond shit tier romance writing
c) romance writing was better. This is some of the worst shit I've ever seen goddamnit.
d) dem recaps. Godfuckingdamnit, 5mins of recaps and OP is TOO MUCH.

As it is it's mindbogglingly average 5/10 series that COULD be good...if creative choices made in beginning of production hadn't been wtffail. In any case I might drop this now that GG stopped subbing it: I don't know if I'll be able wait for days of subs of unsure quality for series that is frankly put boring. So yeah Bakuman encounters increasing danger of getting dropped faster than still warm piece of shit in hands of plumber.

OreImo

First of all I should reply to merri's previous post on subject but I'm not doing that now...secondly, I still have it at 9. I'm not sure if it *deserves* it (let the BD eps decide that one) but I don't have heart to rip away points from show that gave me shitloads of otaku trolling/jokes, tsundere Gendo, Brosuke and Kuroneko and GLORIOUS MAHOU SHOUJO

One of the most unsung aspects of the show has to be animation. It isn't quite K-ON!! but OreImo's character animation was absolutely wonderful, full with detail and additions giving great deal of character to the...characters. I'm sure I could've said this better but whatever. I have many gifs of this show for reason. Seyuu performances were also some of the best and in certain sense Hanezawa totally owned this season voicing my favourite character (Kuroneko), least favourite (if arguably one of the best) lead (Tsukimi) and the best yamato nadesico (Susukihotaru) and god knows what else.

It also had ridiculously catchy OP, perhaps season's best. The way OP and ED changed for each episode was pretty cool too (Ep10 OP > everything else) - I also liked the way they went out of their way to get famous doujin and professional artists do art for EDs, for example Noiji Ito's (Haruhi, Shakugan no Shana, shitloads of eroges) Meruru for ep 10. They really went to extremes in terms of effort in making OreImo.

SRW OG: The Inspector

Pillaging Obari's body of work has led me to the shocking, disturbing discovery that SRW is easily the best Obari anime I've seen so far. It's got great production values and somewhat solid directing which is more that I can say about such wonderful soul crushing turkeys like Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer and Fatal Fury film. Clustered as fuck, confusing and not very good but at least it isn't terrible.

Definition of high budget mediocrity

5/10

Yosuga no Sora

The official turd of the season. From the saccharine moe pop chords of the OP to melodramatic violins, nondescript town in middle of nowhere and harem of girls to pick from it's the very definition of generic VN adaptation. Unfortunately on the top of that genericness they heap loads of horrifyingly bad writing, occasionally so-so animation and so much melodrama it makes my head hurt.

The post-ep bonus parts were infinitely better and more amusing than the main show itself. and CHAPA CHAPA was stupidgood in its catchyness.

4/10

Shinryaku! Ika Musume

Squid Girl is love. Sooner she returns to invade humanity in form of second season the better. Most heartwarming series of the season. Not all humour was laugh inducing (though I'm sure it hit hard the shounen target demography) but it was always entertaining and fun. I think I was always smiling by the end of episode.

Degeso was officially one of the words of the year, btw

8/Degeso

Soredemo de Machi wa mawatteiru

Not even SHAFT and Shinbo could entirely ruin this series.

The Good:

- Sexvoice
- Kon Futaba
- Some good jokes and interesting ideas
- GOD TIER ED
- GOD TIER OP (by Maaya Sakamoto!)
- The Maids performance at Culture Festival

The Bad:

- POKO POKO POKO POKO POKO SHOOT THAT FUCKING RAT ALREADY
- SHAFT
- Shinbo
- SHAFT
- Shinbo
- random SHAFT fanservice where it wasn't needed
- for the most part meh writing and unfunny humour

It was ok series that SHAFT/Shinbo didn't QUITE manage to ruin - albeit I imagine it would've been a lot better if done by e.g. Kyoani (expect for SHAFT awesome OP & ED) but faults of writing aren't SHAFT's fault.

It was ok series.

6/10

Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt

Quite simply best anime of the season and one of the best of the whole year. Best OST, best art and animation, best direction, best overall AWESOMENESS and by far BEST TROLLING.

GAINAX Tier

FLY AWAY/10

Star Driver

Propably the eventual winner out of all Fall shows: its only challenger and at this point its superior is PSG. Pretty much every aspect of the show is at least damn good - and increasingly often absolutely fabulous. I'll write more when I next write on the show, it's getting late here and only way to stay awake is to let out some good old rage - and SD doesn't provide that

NEED MOAR GINGA/10

Otome Yokai Zakuro

Up 'till second last episode this was the firmest 8 title I'd ever seen. Unfortunately at the last meters show falls to the trap of ALAS POOR VILLAIN pitifying which somehow lessens the impact of in general mighty fine ending. The first half of final episode was also dramaturgial mess which more than anything brought my rating down a notch but the very last 10 minutes of show save it, bringing back the charm show had from the start.

Zakuro is also one of the best written tsundere characters. Not annoying in the least and plenty of badass. It's also most pretty of J.C Staff's countless offerings this season.

Definitively good series that wasn't groundbreaking but most trustworthily entertaining up to the very end.

7/10

A Certain Magical Index II

I MAD

J.C STAFF I AM DISAPPOINT

The last arc of this show that has dragged on for fucking four episodes is by FAR the worst thing in Index ever. There's no defence for this horrifying shit that basically consists of characters running aimlessly around the city, skirmishing with the slutty villain in meaningless combat now and then. With random instances of blatant fanservice here and there, of course. And of course they managed to smuggle in one episode that consisted of nothing but QUALITY.... This has been just terrible. Touma turning into absolutely retarded idiot in latest ep was even further disgrace

Another thing this season falls hard and is getting extremely annoying is the whole LOLCATHOLICS angle of the things - and this arc continued the increasingly obnoxious LOLJAPAN trend of writing. I angsted about this on MAL few days ago:

"I'm starting to feel bad for poor Catholics. Sure they've done lots of wacky shit through the history but this season's amount of crazy Catholics planning world dominance has gone through the roof.

Japs shouldn't write about stuff they don't know anything about (I'm not Catholic btw). Bit about St. Peter choosing the day he died was pretty hilarious too.

This arc has been utter shit from start up to this ep. This was the first halfway decent ep.

RUNNING RUNNING RUNNING the arc.

And Touma's reasoning...how retarded was THAT?

Load of crap."

another major problem has been the big focus on magic side which quite simply is not as intriguing or well written as the science side. With espers et al we have clear rules and logically quite coherent setting. For example as a rule all espers have only ONE ability they must use in differing ways to get to their objectives etc. The reader knows the rules of the game and there's way more tension in combat encounters etc. when one knows the enemy can't arsepull some deus ex machina move from his pocket. The "power level" system is also clear and rationally constructed. Not to mention characters all are better. The best character of magic side, motherfucking Kanzaki, is too WTFHAX powerful to be featured in the storylines currently being adapted and hence we barely see her at all...so we're stuck with ok characters that don't stand a chance against charm of Misaka, Last Order, Kuroko, Accelerator and others.

The writing for magic side is also extremely muddly. The rules of magic system are unclear and seem to lack any kind of coherence. They can seemingly asspull any move as plot needs it. Their issues, organizations etc. are also so distant to the main location (Academy City) it's hard to give a fuck about them.

It doesn't help that in second season the writing has descended to abuse of Christian "history" for KAKKOII myths and whatnot in scale that makes NGE's Lance of Longinus etc. look like prime work in theology in comparison. I wouldn't mind it if they didn't get basic facts wrong in a way that is bound to make most westerners facepalm. *sigh*

The first episode was awesome and the way too short Kuroko arc was great. Rest of Index II has been lolnuns and now RUNNING RUNNING RUNNING.

I am disappoint and mad.

Kuragehime

NoitaminA.

That is all one needs to realize we're talking about top quality series and one of the very best this fall. I wasn't sold from the start unlike Oz (mainly because I found the main character and most of the other cast to be obnoxious fujoshis without a single redeeming trait. Social awkwardness minus moe is something I can't stand often) but I think by eps 3-4 I was getting "in" the show's flow and mood for the first time.

This is simply great. Great, unique cast of characters, very good writing and brilliant directing with nice impressionistic touches and pitch-perfect comedic timing. That (since it looks like merri dropped it after first ep or so) only me and Oz seem to be watching this one is a damn shame and CRIME AGAINST GOOD TASTE.

Get down to watching it. Now. The finale comes out this week (and I do have some worries about it) so this is just initial/formative rating but anyway:

8/10


edit: fixed Bakuman links now ages later. lol

@Xard: My choices of words was misleading for Kimi ni Todoke. I didn't mean it subverted the cliches, instead turned the results into good ones instead of the terrible outcome that seems to be more likely in shoujo anime. In Index, the magic side doesn't only suffer from incomprehensible rules, it also has a weaker cast of characters in comparison to Railgun's all-esper cast.

And yeah, EVERYONE should be watching Kuragehime!

Xard wrote:it's too bad one can't buy good taste

Interpretation 1: "Chaz, you're hopeless, not even £$1,000,000 could help you recognise a decent series like SoRaNoWoTo.
Interpretation 2: "Chaz, you're right. Not even the funding of "An*me no Chikara" was able to make SoRaNoWoTo anything but terrible.

Love ya regardless, Xard :]

Oz wrote:The most impressive thing about (Kimi ni Todoke) is how there is no weak episode

Yeah, I love clip episodes too. Seen Wolf's Rain?
Joking aside: actual thoughts on KnT

@Topic: Recently discovered Koihime Musō.
Probably the dumbest/most enjoyable thing I’ve seen since HSotD.
Unpronounceable names, 99% female cast, big eyes, colourful hair, large knockers, spear-fights, lesbians, innuendo, nudity... THAT'S MORE LIKE IT. This is why I started watching Japanese cartoons.

Bah, decided to get it over with and watch disappearance on my computer. Then a few minutes in the video starts showing some lag, and with this movie I won't settle for anything less than perfect.
I tried hardsubbing it in order to watch on my glorious TV which wouldn't have any problems with it, but in the process of subbing it (which took like painful 10 hours) the audio went off sync and it lost some of its quality as I accidentally used a crf value of 22 (woops ).

Anyway, I think I'll just go with fail-girls 720 release. This movie is very quickly approaching "expectations so high I'm afraid of watching it" mode.

Anyone else been watching Amagami SS this season? This show has some dialog so embarrassing to watch I'd occasionally just pause the episode and think for a second wtf just happened. After the show had some improvement towards the 4th arc, they really had my hopes up for the "childhood friend" girl. Then, well, if you've been on /a/ at the time you should know. FFFFUUUUUU this hit me way harder than P&S trolling, it was the first time I wanted to watch a hitler rage vid so hard. Thankfully...

At least the last episode was a great stand alone had was probably the best recap episode I've ever seen, they found a nice way imo to get around the omnibus format and show all the possibilities in one "universe". 6/10

MM! - Definitely took an unexpected twist at 5th episode, but the responses at that point really showed who is watching it for comedy and who was hoping for a sappy romance for some reason... Could have been better, but really fun nonetheless. 7/10

Snard wrote:It also had ridiculously catchy OP, perhaps season's best.

No no no, obviously Bakuman has the most catchy, fun and well-fit OP of the season. The way this touching piece compliments the series is quite admirable - A series depicting this genuinely touching, well-written romance between teenagers just wouldn't be so amazing without such an emotional, heart-warming song about love.

Started Future Boy Conan awhile ago (just after Xard finished it, actually), and other than that I've been cruisin for shows and watching some OVAs in the mean time. Sped through some Studio 4C stuff, but from the OVA boom pile, the most notable I watched was Crusher Joe. Shit was awesome; 80s Sunrise value with characters that practically came out of the Dirty Pair series (in fact, I think they did...). Add on top of that Shoji Kawamori's mech designs and you have one gorgeous looking product. The battle scene at the end of the first OVA ("The Ice Prison") was Grade-A late 80s sci-fi animu at its finest.

Oz wrote:@Xard: My choices of words was misleading for Kimi ni Todoke. I didn't mean it subverted the cliches, instead turned the results into good ones instead of the terrible outcome that seems to be more likely in shoujo anime. In Index, the magic side doesn't only suffer from incomprehensible rules, it also has a weaker cast of characters in comparison to Railgun's all-esper cast.

And yeah, EVERYONE should be watching Kuragehime!

The terrible outcomes aren't any more common, I think, in shoujo than in most other genres. Or not even terrible outcomes, but "situations that end slightly undesireable". You need a little of that to have the drama, and Kimi ni Todoke lacked the drama part, for sure, but there's some pretty good titles that I think are shoujo that's pretty similar.

Have you been keeping up with Literature Girl? New movie, a set of OVA prequels. etc.

Xard wrote: Uhh, I'm pretty sure Disappearance was only around 3 hours, not 4...

Yeah, now that I checked, it was less than 3 hours. I happened to hit the "O" key to get a "time elapsed/total time" for the movie and it said 241 something. Not having scheduled the time for the movie I mistakenly thought that was minutes and not 2 hours, 41 minutes. Regardless, I heard the movie was long, I should have had the expectations in mind when I started it, but I didn't. Regardless it was still pretty awesome once I rewatched it the next day.

Ornette wrote:Have you been keeping up with Literature Girl? New movie, a set of OVA prequels. etc.

I got the Bungaku Shoujo film couple of days ago because the title and short synopsis were interesting and made me feel inexplicably nostalgic without any clear reason, bit like Whisper of the Heart. I didn't know it was shoujo, I had got the image it had messed up people in literature club and somewhat Shinkaiesque romance

I had never even heard of Bungaku Shoujo before. Thanks for the rec.

On my to-watch list for January 2011:

- Eden of the East
(saw it on Madman's site and became interested)

- Excel Saga
(back in June/July when I was becoming acquainted with EGF I found Brikhaus's blog and roamed around. I saw the intro for Excel Saga included in one of his articles, and thought that I should give it a try)

- Gunbuster / Aim For the Top!
(interest in seeing Anno's first directorial effort goes without saying. Here's to hoping it delivers in good sci-fi entertainment)

WHAAAAAAAT

Xard wrote:I got the Bungaku Shoujo film couple of days ago because the title and short synopsis were interesting and made me feel inexplicably nostalgic without any clear reason, bit like Whisper of the Heart. I didn't know it was shoujo, I had got the image it had messed up people in literature club and somewhat Shinkaiesque romance

Well, the featured character is a girl that eats books. I guess that falls in the "messed up people" category.

@EvangelionFan: Since you want to see Eden of the East in January, you might as well watch Fractale and Hourou Musuko during the next anime season. Why? Because they are the newest noitaminA shows and Eden of the East was originally aired in that same time slot as well.

Saw the first Yozakura Quartet OVA. Youkai girls in love with human and other magical fragootry which I didn't care for. Though, animation was superb. Do I see some Kemonozume staff there?

Just watched the first 3 episodes of Spice and Wolf II... UGHHHHHHH why can't the fourth episode finish downloading.... it's like torture. Also I finished the first Spice and Wolf novel in 7 hours with breaks today... It's going to be torture waiting for them to come out once I'm caught up. Finally watched the final episodes to Yosuga no Sora, Ika Musume, Ore no Imouto, and Soredemo, those were all excellent ways to end all of them. Being my emotional self I wasn't hesitant to tear up a couple times during them.

Watched Arakawa Under The Bridge Season One.

Hilarious shit.

InstrumentalityOne wrote:Watched Arakawa Under The Bridge Season One.

Terrible shit.

Fixed.