My two favorite anime are Evangelion and Madoka Magica. I'd put Death Note on equal footing with them, but after you-know-who dies the show nosedives in quality. The manga has the same problem. Unfortunately, I haven't had the opportunity to see the stage musical, but according to what I've read online, they fix the problem in such a deliciously dark, hilarious way that I can't freaking believe neither the anime or manga went with it! Hopefully the American movie does.

And speaking of the Death Note musical, the demos are great. The lyrics are awkward, sure, but they remind me of something translated from one language into another, which is what the show ended up being. I don't understand why Frederator thought they were bad.

Attack on Titan starts out with promise, but doesn't really go anywhere. It's mediocre overall.

I don't understand why Himouto! Umaru-chan is so popular and has so much merchandise and cosplayers. It's like a WataMote that misses the point of WataMote. I mean, I do think it's cute.. when it's just Umaru and her brother. All of the other characters seem as though they were written without even a basic understanding of archetypes, let alone actual characterization.

Funimation's dub of the Rebuild movies is magnificent and I'd kill for NGE to be redubbed by the same team.

Most of NGE is just waiting for The End of Evangelion.

Tumbling Down wrote:Funimation's dub of the Rebuild movies is magnificent and I'd kill for NGE to be redubbed by the same team.

I'm not sure if that's controversial per se. I've seen a good amount of positive reception. Having personally sat through 3.0's dub in the theater, and made valiant but failed attempts to sit through those of the first two, "magnificent" does feel a bit... errrr... strong. This really isn't the thread to delve deeply, though I will at least share the anecdote that 1.0's dub disagreed with me so thoroughly that I developed an actual headache from it. I wish I were joking.

Sicarius VI wrote:If you bother to get involved in one of the long running Shonen series it might change your view. I.E I have been following One Piece for a while now, and I must say I enjoy it and it is the best selling Manga for a reason. While the later certainly isn't a Controversial anime opinion within the Anime community, it certainly is on Evageeks.

With Bebop I found the stuff between Spike and Vicious to be the most interesting and there were a few episodes that I found myself not really caring. It was mixed for me.

I love Cowboy Bebop, but I actually have to agree that most mainstream Shonen anime isn't all that good.

Funimation's dub of the Rebuild movies is magnificent and I'd kill for NGE to be redubbed by the same team.

I'd have to mostly agree, while some aspects could be better I'd say it is a step up from the original series. Maybe when Funimation or the revived ADV get a hold of the Blu-Ray license they can redo a good chunk of the lines. I just did a rewatch of Eva and I did it in Japanese for the first time. I'd have to say that's better than the English dub, which I enjoyed aswell.

@El Squibbonator - Yea, believe me the parts in Cowboy Bebop I loved, but there were parts that I found boring too. Also with Shonen anime, I would attribute part of the problem to pacing, filler, and quality. Usually the source manga is better than the anime, again speaking for One Piece, I really wouldn't know about the rest, but just with a lot of episodes that cover 1 chapter from the Manga the pacing feels super slow and nothing feels like it happens in an episode if this is the case.

Dual is not a ripoff of Eva.

Having seen the whole show now, I gotta say that this is one of the more ridiculous things that "everybody knows" in animeland. There are some superficial similarities, yes, but this is a Tenchi show through and through, not an Eva ripoff. I mean, everything about it -- story, themes, tone, character tropes -- just screams "TENCHI!" And why wouldn't it? It's officially a parallel setting to the main Tenchi universe, and set in the same broader multiverse.

At this point I'm left to wonder if people who claim X is a ripoff of Y even know what the term means.

This is going to make Rosenkhara mad. But after watching it a second time. . . I think I've fallen out of love with the Twelve Kingdoms.

I found what the Anime did to poor Asano to just be outright mean spirited, cruel, and at the end of it all. . . pointless. (which makes sense since he was an Anime-Only character). Yoko and the other girls got it bad in their Journey's, I'm by no means saying they had it easy. But there's was just something about the way Asano's story was handled that rubbed me the wrong way, no not rub me the wrong way. Make me genuinely angry!

Compiling_Autumn wrote:All Monogataris are good. Even Katanagatari.

(Especially Katanagatari.)

But seriously, even the weaker cycles have something to offer to the larger plot that Nisio Isin is weaving with the series.

Kataanagatari is not apart of the Monogatari series and it is self contained.

robersora wrote:I love Monogatari, (yes, even the gross bits - because they are hilarious to me). I can't stand Katanagatari, though. Haven't managed to watch more than 4 Minutes.

I am the opposite. I love Katanagatari but I am pretty meh on Monogatari.

Massive catchup post

We Are Nice To You wrote:Unless I'm instantly sold on the premise, I will likely wait till an anime is over to get a consensus on if it is worth watching or not.

Having other people pre-watch is fine, so long as you can tell how well their tastes align with yours. To this day, I still don't get Haruhi's popularity, but at least I learned enough to avoid other fad anime from Code Geass through to currently airing Re:Zero.

You are not obligated to watch a show as it airs.

...but it can be more fun to watch along with other people. I expect I might have enjoyed Madoka, had I done it that way. It was definitely part of the experience of watching YuYuYu when everything came tumbling down, with all the last episode sweepstakes and the like.

I want more Josei anime.

by Madhouse. Yes. (Chihayafuru S3, when?)

Bagheera wrote:We need more Seinen and Josei anime in general, yes.

Obligatory reminder that K-On! is seinen.

pwhodges wrote:I guess I'm the one with the controversial opinion for once, because I like the Elfen Lied anime.

See also the first page of the anime recs thread.

esselfortium wrote:All Monogataris Are Good

Nobody did the Oremonogatari joke? I am disappointed.

GAP wrote:Kataanagatari is not apart of the Monogatari series and it is self contained.

umm...that was the joke

I am so over Urobuchi. Yes Madoka TV was excellent and yes Gaim was great but what else does he have to his name? He's followed up his massive success with seriously boring and uninteresting works. I don't know why people get so amped saying "New anime by Urobuchi!" "Urobuchi worked on this game!" when the last time he did something really good was years ago and he's had a lot of boring garbage inbetween!

... All that being said I am enjoying Thunderbolt Fantasy but I love puppet dramas and with it being a copro I'm hoping Urobuchi has less involvement than the people with experience in this medium.

edit: Also yes before you say anything I know he wrote Saya no Uta. Saya no Uta was awesome when I first played it in High School but upon replaying it later I really fell out of love with that game.

MuscleRobo wrote:I am so over Urobuchi. Yes Madoka TV was excellent and yes Gaim was great but what else does he have to his name? He's followed up his massive success with seriously boring and uninteresting works. I don't know why people get so amped saying "New anime by Urobuchi!" "Urobuchi worked on this game!" when the last time he did something really good was years ago and he's had a lot of boring garbage inbetween!

... All that being said I am enjoying Thunderbolt Fantasy but I love puppet dramas and with it being a copro I'm hoping Urobuchi has less involvement than the people with experience in this medium.

edit: Also yes before you say anything I know he wrote Saya no Uta. Saya no Uta was awesome when I first played it in High School but upon replaying it later I really fell out of love with that game.

It's been a while, yes, but it had also been a while since he last completely took the reins on a TV series, rather than just providing some concepts or being one of multiple writers involved. I'd argue that this is the main reason he hasn't had any amazing must-see projects in a couple years, so to hope for minimal Urobuchi involvement again in Thunderbolt Fantasy seems pretty counterintuitive to me.

The original Urobuchi-penned season of Psycho-Pass, and Gargantia (even though he didn't personally write every episode of it) were both exceptional shows, IMO, even though neither of them quite reached Madoka's amazing heights for me. (I've yet to see Fate/Zero or read Saya no Uta, but have heard good things and plan on getting around to them eventually.)

I hope that after Thunderbolt Fantasy we'll start seeing some more projects with significant involvement from him again. Even with some misfires (generally the result of other contributors, like how Psycho-Pass 2 and Aldnoah.Zero became massive trainwrecks under their other writers), he's still easily among the most interesting and capable writers in anime today, IMO.

edit:

MuscleRobo wrote:Yes Madoka TV was excellent

and Rebellion is just as good

esselfortium wrote:edit:

and Rebellion is just as good

I'd actually say Rebellion is better than the series, which I suppose can be controversial in it's own right. And I'm not a big Homura fan, so that's not why I say that. Madoka Kaname for eva.

I don't really like admitting it because I love the witch and character designs and the whole Madoka universe, but on my first watch through I was a bit bored with the series until ep. 10(which is definitely in my top five all time favorite stand alone annimay eps). And then on my second watch through I realized that I'm just not that into episodes 1-9 for whatever reason but that Rebellion is super fun and interesting and just beautiful to watch and listen to. We're familiar with all of the characters and it's nice to see them all working and fighting together, even though you know that somethings not quite right, and the movie just flows super well from start to finish.

I'm of the opinion that a live-action Berserk movie/TV series would actually work better for an adaptation of the manga than an anime. Miura's artwork is just impossible to truly capture in animated form; the best attempt was the 1997 anime and even that struggled, and don't get me started on the movies or the new CGI anime. Now granted I have no idea at all how one would do a Berserk live action production- a Japanese production wouldn't be ideal as simply put, Japanese actors in a world as obviously Western-inspired as Berserk just wouldn't work, and I can't see any Western directors with enough clout and resources to do the series justice that would be willing to do something as goddamn grim as Berserk. Yes we've had gore and rape in stuff like Game of Thrones, but nowhere near even approaching the darkness one would expect from a decent Berserk adaptation.

El Squibbonator wrote:^
Agreed. I'm pretty sure most of us agreed by now that Elfen Lied is garbage.

No augment here...its one of those few anime's that made me so angry that I wanted to throw the dvd on the barbecue and set it alight with gasoline both for wasting my time and being outright offensive and disgusting on every level. I normally really enjoy horror anime and find the dark physiological side interesting but this one struck a raw nerve and it gets my hated boiling.

^
That's an artistic achievement too, I guess.

There are enjoyable elements to the Elfen Lied anime. ("Elements," not even parts.) The soundtrack is nice, and the OP is stunning to look at. I kinda just want to find Native 1080p rips of the OP, actually. Some Gustav Klimt-inspired art is always atmospheric, in my opinion.

I had fun with the show itself until about a day after I finished it, then I realized that it never really wrapped anything up. I've never read the manga, mind you, so my disappointment in the show never exploded into rage.

GAP wrote:Kataanagatari is not apart of the Monogatari series and it is self contained.

I am the opposite. I love Katanagatari but I am pretty meh on Monogatari.

Imo katanagatari is by far the best nisioisn related thing I have ever seen. As for the other monogataris, I think their good but not great. I think my least favorite nisiisin related thing was his deathnote novelization. It wasn't terrible, but the weird names in the story were just jarring, I mean these names were really weird even for deathnote, like who is named "Before Bridesmaid" or "Quarter Queen".

Don't know if it's agreed among here, but Elfen Lied is a hot pile of pretentious shit.

It's a widespread view, probably majority but not universal - I, for one, disagree.

(Also, although this is the anime thread, have you read the manga? As so often happens, the ending is much more fleshed out.)

I thought Elfen Lied was ok, not great but not terrible