What anime are you watching right now? Sep2011-May2012

[Mr. Tines]

Oh yeah, I forgot to reveal what shojo anime I'm going to take on. And the winner is.........

I suppose I should have guessed, since this was a Go Nagai title not on your MAL.

[Natsuka_Chie]

Watched the first episodes of Senki Zesshou Symphogear and Amagami SS+. Both very good, in my opinion.

[Merridian]

Oh yeah, I forgot to reveal what shojo anime I'm going to take on. And the winner is.........

Well that is a classic, but it's not exactly shoujo. Mahou shoujo, maybe.

[Aiko Heiwa]

I decided to finish Shinryaku!? Ika Musume.

I completely forgot about this show after the 5th episode...

[Fireball]

Welp, so I just finished Victory Gundam. Not sure what to feel after all those deaths and Bikini Babes. (like seriously. WTF can't be stressed enough. It's kind of genius in a madman kind of sense though)

Sporadically I found it brilliant much like a version of Zeta but with more sympathetic characters and despite its high body count there was always a little room for lighthearted moments, prominently at the end before the big attack when the kids were playing ball (using Haro as the toy no less). Some of the elder question how they can play games before such an important battle when the other captain answers what's the point of fighting if we don't remember the blithesome times in life. That is a powerful moment as the watcher realizes that there isn't a point in all this killing and you just wish the kids would have never been dragged into all of this.

Character wise they were all okay, I liked Üso but no one really charismatic. Katejina has to be the highlight. Bitch killed half of the Shrike Team in one episode and psychoed herself right into my heart. Wish Tomino would have explained her heel face turn better. In the novel she is supposedly rescued by Chronicle and gets a Cyper Newtype treatment which would have explained everything. Alas this wasn't case, I was totally convinced she would die at the end but the "life is a heavier punishment" works just as well, if not even better. Seeing her blind and mindbroken, I felt almost pity.

Enjoyed the mecha design most of the time. Motorcycle battleships and Shenlong MS was the usual I-tried-to-divide-by-zero designs but the rest was actually pretty cool. Like the Gedlav and the rest of the grunt units in all its variants and the V Gundam which wasn't the special prototype that can only be piloted by the chosen one but is actually used by several people at the same time.

The downside of the series are obviously those ridiculous super awkward moments. The whole pregnancy thing made me flinch in embarrassment or the already mentioned fanservice.
I didn't even mind the gratuitous deaths which morbidly enough you get used to after a while, but some of them were so silly that you couldn't help but shake your head. The following "feelsorryNOW" didn't help either. Also, I think the series was a bit too long for its own good. The constant defection of Shakti and the following rescue missions was played out after the first two times.

Animation was fairly consistent. Nothing overly fancy but not really any QUALITY moments, either. The lack of vibrant colors gave it the rather fitting autumnal and bleak look it derserved.

Soundtrack was bittsweet and one of the best once I've heard in the franchise so far.


Moving on to Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team.

[Final Messenger]

That was a nice review of victory gundam fireball

Anyway I watched some K-ON and YuriYuri today both shows had me laughing for a while.

[bobbyfischer's ghost]

I re-watched Bakemonogatari today.

[InstrumentalityOne]

Gundam AGE 13 was amazing compared to the shitty shitty shitty Fardain arc.
This show is shaping up pretty nicely.

[Defectron]

Well that is a classic, but it's not exactly shoujo. Mahou shoujo, maybe.

If this was any other cutey honey series I would agree about it not being shojo, but this one actually is if you watch it. I'm kind of expecting the shojoness to rub twin drive the wrong way, but then again he went and said the live action version was the best so he's surprised me before. I could never find subs for the later episodes of this series though.

[Twin Drive Sigma Aquarion]

You're under the assumption that I've never finished an anime without english subs/dubs.

[driftking18594]

I've just finished FLCL. I need to take a lie-down.

[Hyper Shinchan]

You're under the assumption that I've never finished an anime without english subs/dubs.

Probably I/we'll have to follow your example to watch Layzner...

[Dr. Nick]

Probably I/we'll have to follow your example to watch Layzner...

Don't do that. At least Layzner is being subbed, although glacially. Watch something else in the meantime.

[Twin Drive Sigma Aquarion]

Better examples would be Baldios, Great Mazinger, Grendizer (you watch 69 eps in another language with only wiki translations from Translate Google as a guide), Getter Robo original and G, Raideen, and Daitarn 3 although you could include Layzner in there. I'd count Daimos, but that just applies to the last three eps since I saw eps 16-41 via the Philippine dub (lord I hate name changing in dubs), although if I saw any more like that I'd be lost since Tadoh Nagahama's Robot Romance Trilogy tend to be very dialogue heavy and if you don't know what they're saying it is hard to enjoy it. Yeah.

[Hyper Shinchan]

Don't do that. At least Layzner is being subbed, although glacially. Watch something else in the meantime.

The point is that I've recently started watching it from the beginning, since I stopped around episode 14 ages ago, but now I feel quite compelled to watch the second part, which is apparently epic.

Better examples would be Baldios, Great Mazinger, Grendizer (you watch 69 eps in another language with only wiki translations from Translate Google as a guide), Getter Robo original and G, Raideen, and Daitarn 3 although you could include Layzner in there.

Oh, but there's the Italian edition for most of those anime, Raideen is the only exception that I can remember, I could be wrong though, but unfortunately I'm more interested in 80s "real robot" series rather than 70s "super robot" ones.

[Final Messenger]

Watched some of the original gundam today. Its good to rewatch it again. Also rewatched some of the original FMP it's all right if you know what your getting into

[Twin Drive Sigma Aquarion]

What about 80s super robot, HS? You would miss stuff like this:

[Hyper Shinchan]

What about 80s super robot, HS? You would miss stuff like this:

They were a rare breed and most of them were actually made at the beginning of the 80s, Dancougar is the only middle 80s mecha show that I can think of.

[child of Lilith]

Finally finished Durarara. Dear god was this show awful. I don't know if it's the worse thing I've ever watched, but it comes damn close all the same. The shit dub sure didn't help matters either.

Hard to believe something this horrible could have been made or that there are people who actually like it. . .

It is truly a strange and disturbing world we live in. . .

[Mr. Tines]

Finally finished Durarara. Dear god was this show awful.

You are allowed to drop a series if it's gone unrelentingly dreadful.