What anime are you watching right now? May-Nov '13

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A.T. Fish
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Postby A.T. Fish » Tue Sep 17, 2013 6:22 am

View Original PostInstrumentalityOne wrote:Blasphemy.


I like it better when she's angry and shouting hobiron all the time.

Well, seeing all the buzz on the previous page about Nichijou I feel very tempted to watch it, looks like the comedy is right up my alley. I've seen the OVA of episode 0 a few weeks back and really enjoyed the first half of it.

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Postby Giji Shinka » Tue Sep 17, 2013 12:55 pm

It's time to watch, yet again: "That when the threeeat tooooo mankind has beeen laid DOWN to the lord ect ect."
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Postby Xard » Tue Sep 17, 2013 4:42 pm

View Original PostSailor Star Dust wrote:I have the last 3 episodes of Nichijou back-logged, but what was the deal with all the hate in Japan? Hilarious series, as far as I'm concerned.


Hate is too strong word. Nichijou flopped hard and had number of small scale disastrous consequences for number of players in the industry. For the few who don't like KyoAni in Japan it also opened up chance to riff on them in a way that had been hard to come by for some time.

The most immediate consequence of Nichijou was that it destroyed "the myth of Kyoto Animation's invincibility". Prior to Nichijou (Munto has been erased from mankind's collective memory it seemed like you could throw absolutely anything at studio and they'd turn it into gigantic hit and have the investors roll in dough afterwards.

Producer of the show, same guy who produced eg. Haruhi, was obviously confident in KyoAni delivering the goods once again and spend a fortune on lavish promotion campaign and went as far as making obviously highly prioritized and budgeted series two cours from the start. KyoAni on the other hand was in it because they quite simply seemed to dig the manga and it allowed them unusually varied chances to do "art for art's sake" in their animation.

Alas, Nichijou's weirdness ended up becoming the "one bridge too far" even for this studio. It's nothing unusual to have a lot of net buzz before new kyoani series about how they won't be pulling through this time but Nichijou was first time initial skepticism was validated.

There was a number of causes contributing to Nichijou's failure (the 3k+ average sales would be average by standards of any studio buy for KyoAni nothing short of catastrophic) and publisher's horrid overpricing policy certainly was a big one but ultimately what sealed the deal was that show was simply too strange to make it big - and no amount of godly animation could overcome that. Of course the overpricing was partly affect of belief this was going to be the hit of the year of all yers.


As for consequences KyoAni lost their invincibility mandate but apart from that no actual repercursions are apparent. They still do exactly what they want and with characteristic high production quality that has not suffered in the least. It's just a reputation thing and there's pretty common perception that "post-nichijou" KyoAni just isn't quite as impeccable as studio used to be. While I think Nichijou's one of KA's better shows I'm forced to agree: studio considers Haruhi finished and stubbornly passes over guaranteed megahits like further Key adaptations over adapting obscure LNs they have published themselves. Which is good biz, admittedly, as they get all potential profits. Still, only Chuunibyou and apparently Free(?) now meet the expectations of their hit maker reputation. Hyouka sold well but not spectacularly while Tamako Market flopped as bad as Nichijou.

Far more severe the consequences were for the producer who got demoted big time in Kadokawa and has not acted as main producer of any series since. This is big thing because the man oft. in combo with KyoAni was behind many hit series, no more notable than Haruhi. As long as the guy remains demoted I think chances for new Haruhi anime are virtually nill (not thay they'd be that big anyway).

tl;dr: Nichijou doesn't get "hate" per se, it was just too weird to make it big despite hard and obnoxious marketing push for that end and in process series brought KyoAni down a notch. Those who actually have finished the show seem to dig it going my series's high rating on pages like MAL but it's worth keeping in mind it's the kind of series inclined to shrug off disinclined viewers during first couple of episodes so their presence in discussion of and evaluation of series is quite neglible.

View Original Postpwhodges wrote:Yes, the cuteness is dialled up to 11; yes many of the gags are hilarious; but it lacks any sense of progression or development to hold all the elements together and give context. This is what makes Azumanga Daioh so great in comparison.


I agree and this is main reason why Nichijou doesn't really threaten AD's status in my eyes (another reason would be supieriority of AD's cast, as much as I like Nichijou's). Still, rare comedy gag series feature much in terms of story (pretty much every animated american sitcom ever) so it didn't bother me that much. I took it as 26 slices of charming madness rather than something that tries and fails to deliver compelling, continuous narrative.

View Original Postpwhodges wrote:I expect that it works far better watching just an episode a week, rather than marathoned, though, so I may be being a bit unfair because of the way I tend to take things in as a whole. For me it started at 8/10, but fell to 7/10 towards the end because it was starting to get boring - cute boring, funny boring, but still just a bit boring.


This is very possible. I only ever marathoned the series once (final 8 episode stretch) though I found series's at best towards the end. Alternatively it was only towards end I was completely in sync with series's comedic sensibilities and hence the experience was most enjoyable at then.

I started Nichijou back in the day when it first aired and watched first 5 episodes but while I found it pleasantly amusing I didn't care for it that much so I put it on indefinitive hold. I started sporadically continuing Nichijou this summer because Oz liked the show, I had it on my HD and we often needed to watch ep or two of something entirely different to unwind from intense Brotherhood marathoning. So we 1-3 episodes per week approximately untill I went and finished the show on my own few weeks ago.

I'm not sure what the reason was but I appreciated Nichijou a lot more after picking it up again than back in the day.

View Original PostInstrumentalityOne wrote:Xard should Astro Fighter Sunred next.
Probably not as funny, but infinitely more charming.


Going by Astrored's reputation for funnyness vs. Nichijou's moe+silly I'd expect it to be other way around, actually. But yeah, as far as comedy shows go I have high expectations for Sunred, whenever I get to it.

View Original Postchazthesilencer wrote:Every few months or so- I make the same exclamation. I agree that Cagliostro is good stuff and has aged very well; although I haven’t seen much else out of the decade of disco to call it the “best annie may of 70’s” with any conviction.


Well, when I wrote that I did think of possible competitors and while I felt tinge of unease due to not having finished Rose of Versailles yet that (and to lesser extent original Ashita no Joe series) excluded I'm certain I've seen the noteworthy competition. Ironically enough Cagliostro's most serious challenger would be this:

Image

so Miyazaki would be winning da discobowl regardless. Apart from beyond fantastic Future Boy Conan (which is probably Miyazaki's most influential work in Japan and one of the most loved) that still ranks among the best anime series ever released there's the other great feature of the decade Galaxy Express 999 but Rintaro's best film doesn't quite catch up with the elegance and surehandedness of Miyazaki's feature film debut, even if its scifi vision is impressive in itself.

Other top pickings of the decade like Yamato, Gundam, Ace wo Nerae!, Lupin III tv series, Harlock etc. while good don't really play in the same league with those three.

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Postby Monk Ed » Tue Sep 17, 2013 6:37 pm

No more Haruhi anime?! Because *Nichijou* failed?!
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Postby Xard » Tue Sep 17, 2013 7:00 pm

View Original PostMonk Ed wrote:No more Haruhi anime?! Because *Nichijou* failed?!


It's not the main reason but it's contributing factor. Full story here

For Atsushi Ito parts:


The manga series are selling well without any special promotion and Tanigawa still can’t submit any stories. What’s to promote? Therein lies the real cause of no Haruhi Suzumiya season 3: Kadokawa, who makes anime to promote their own publications, has nothing left to promote for the Haruhi Suzumiya franchise and no support from the main animation studio. In addition, the main producer for Kadokawa that works with KyoAni, Atsushi Ito, is demoted from head of animation production likely due to backlash from fans in Nichijou and his inclusion of Minoru Shiraishi in many shows/bonus footage (See edit below for more information). Without Ito, it’s unlikely anyone will push for more Haruhi. There’s other unknown franchises that can be promoted via anime materials and earn much more revenue for Kadokawa than Haruhi, so why waste resources on it? Nothing new’s coming out.

And that’s the reason for no more Haruhi. It’s not Hirano, it’s not Goto, and to some extent it’s not Shiraishi. It’s the fact that Tanigawa can’t consistently write the story enough for Kadokawa to promote the novels more. Two books in 4 years doesn’t lead to anime production. Other factors include KyoAni moving to their own IPs and the demotion of the producer of the show, but if Tanigawa had written more, we’d be seeing Haruhi S3 by now.

........



As for Ito, during Nichijou he was listed as Video Media Department Vice President/Animation Division Head/Project Planning Section Chief. In the following year during Hyouka, he was only listed as a project producer. It’s not a secret that Nichijou was a flop on video disc sales and music sales (it did well for manga volumes and introduced a new manga magazine). He took the blame for that and was demoted afterwards. He’s not been listed as a producer on any Kadokawa show since Hyouka.

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Postby Monk Ed » Tue Sep 17, 2013 7:14 pm

How ironic, back when Haruhi was a big hit that I hadn't seen yet and I had learned to hate it because of the misinterpretation I'd developed of it because of the fans pushing it in my face (that's how it often goes, right?), I would have liked nothing more than this, but now that I kinda like it this is sad. :(
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Postby schwarzstahlhelm1993 » Tue Sep 17, 2013 7:19 pm

DUST TO DUST

ASHES TO ASHES


Best girl.
Image

And this scene was 99.9999% perfect. All it needed for it to be 100% perfect should have been
Image

ENGRISH

But other than that, 10/10, one of the most underrated anime series I've ever known of. Of Sunrise's best.

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Postby Monk Ed » Tue Sep 17, 2013 7:57 pm

I've never heard of this series...
View Original Postschwarzstahlhelm1993 wrote:

...but now I want to see it.

That's some very Misato hair.
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Postby caragnafog dog » Tue Sep 17, 2013 8:29 pm

I got annoyed by all the Geass talk for a long time, so I watched it. Now it's way more annoying.
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Postby Ornette » Tue Sep 17, 2013 8:32 pm

View Original PostMonk Ed wrote:I've never heard of this series...

...but now I want to see it.

That's some very Misato hair.

I gave Gasaraki a 5. It's unbelievably boring.

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Postby Dream » Tue Sep 17, 2013 8:49 pm

So, i've watched up to episode 16 of Nadia.

... Man, i don't even know where or how to begin. When i got to episode 12 or so i already thought Nadia was pretty good. Now it's *amazing*. I don't know if this might just be due to a small hiatus from episodes 12 and 13, but i felt there was something that made all the aspects of the series (especially in terms of directing and editing) that seriously shot up from episode 13 onwards. At first i assumed this was going to be a light-hearted, emotionally resonant adventure series, but i certainly didn't expect this adventure series to deal with matters like death, violence, science and morality, and who knows what else i'm missing.

It has got to the point where i honestly don't mind the QUALITY anymore, or at least i don't notice it as much. I don't know if they had more time to polish the animation of later episodes, but the number of cuts in which Nadia and other characters were violently off-model or the animation was ridiculously sketchy seem to have pretty much dissapeared. At no moment in the series did i have the impression of "Oh, this animation isn't very good", but rather "Oh, the people who worked in this clearly didn't have much time to animate this", and to this day i'm not very sure what made the difference. I mean, of course i know it has something to do with Gainax's skill, but i'm not sure exactly how. I guess what i'm trying to say is that despite the apparently austere working conditions Gainax found themselves in during Nadia's production, the finished work was still nothing short of awesome.

But i'll admit there has always been something that kinda weirded me out about Nadia...

I don't know if me and Anno have a very different idea of what constitutes a child, but if i was making a kid's show i would never think of adding a scene like Mr. Fait's demise, things like Neo-Atlantis, or such an austere portrayal of war, death, and all sort of stuff i'm sure many *adults* have trouble dealing with. The fact that the series can go between whimsical adventure tone and dead-serious, heavy tone doesn't exactly help (I think episodes 5 and 13 are the best example of this). I'm not kidding when i say that some of the series's mood whiplashes almost gave me a heart attack.

Oh, and also i feel the need to particularly mention episode 16. There's just something about the unconventional... Everything, of that episode and the minimalist style of it that i wouldn't be surprised at all if that ends up being my favorite episode of the entire anime. Definitively in need of a re-watch.

SPOILER: Show
Oh, and Nadia is hot as hell. It feels a bit weird to say this given i saw NGE before Nadia, but she really is one of the hottest anime characters i've seen, off-model and all.


However, the main reason i'm posting this here is to ask this: Since i want to skip the infamous island episodes in my first watch, which episodes do i want to skip and what episodes i most certainly don't want to skip?
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Postby C.A.P. » Tue Sep 17, 2013 9:34 pm

Dream, watch them. It'll make the last 5 episodes more special when you get there.

But yeah, don't skip 30-31.
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Postby caragnafog dog » Tue Sep 17, 2013 9:46 pm

I can't remember anything important happening in the island arc. What went down that would make skipping them bad?
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Postby Fireball » Tue Sep 17, 2013 10:08 pm

If you can't deal with a couple of bad anime episodes you are not cut out for this job.
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Postby cyharding » Tue Sep 17, 2013 10:56 pm

I'd say they are worth watching at least once. They are bad episodes, but there are some good scenes scattered in them.

SPOILER: Show
Jean high on shrooms always gets a chuckle out of me.


And as stated, episodes 30 & 31 need to be watched for their role in the grand plot. It's actually kind of sad that these episodes weren't better and that Anno had to leave them to someone else in order to focus on the ending. With some animation and story changes, I think they could have become some of the strongest episodes.
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Postby pwhodges » Wed Sep 18, 2013 2:36 am

I'm in the middle of rewatching Haruhi (in combined chronological order). I've just finished the "Endless Eight" episodes, and it's confirmed my previous view that, whatever the commercial aspects of the decision to do them as they did, it was a worthwhile artistic decision - and that, the way I watched them (two eps a day) at least, eight was exactly the right number of episodes to build the tension and frustration as far as practical. I can't imagine such programming being done, or even required, again - but I'm glad it has been done, and done well.

This time I even felt a bit of a parallel between the viewer's frustration being made to match that of Kyon and the viewer's confusion being made to match that of Shinji in Q.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the Disappearance film again.

@Dream - do watch all of Nadia; not least, skipping things will just leave you uncertain whether you missed something...
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Postby Mr. Tines » Wed Sep 18, 2013 2:39 am

View Original PostMonk Ed wrote:I've never heard of this series...
...but now I want to see it.
I'll second Ornette's take on this. I tried it because the trailers looked impressive and there wasn't much in the way of anime available on DVD here a decade ago -- it's very much a post-EVA real-robot series, stealing some of the forms, but executing in a very bloodless way. There was potential there in the bigger political story, as can be seen from the synopses of the later episodes, but that's all. It was definitely insufficient, after 5 episodes, to make me feel like springing for the second disk.

View Original PostDream wrote:
SPOILER: Show
Oh, and Nadia is hot as hell. It feels a bit weird to say this given i saw NGE before Nadia, but she really is one of the hottest anime characters i've seen, off-model and all.
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Postby caragnafog dog » Wed Sep 18, 2013 6:43 am

View Original PostFireball wrote:If you can't deal with a couple of bad anime episodes you are not cut out for this job.
I definitely agree with that, I just couldn't remember anything relevant to the plot happening during that time.
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fhycjubg beat tge sgut iyt if gun
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> Wow. I've disgusted even myself.

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Postby A.T. Fish » Wed Sep 18, 2013 7:57 am

Episode 11 of Watamote killed me with the K-On! references and it's heart warming end.

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Postby Squigsquasher » Wed Sep 18, 2013 8:46 am

Well, I recently watched Little Witch Academia, and I was thoroughly impressed. Gloriously fluid Gainax-esque animation, unique character designs, great music, a good sense of humour, plenty of epicness, and not a single second of QUALITY. I hope we get more out of Studio Trigger; they seem to know what they're doing.
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