What anime are you watching right now? May07-Feb10

Xard · Postby **Xard** » Wed Feb 10, 2010 2:24 pm

Heh, Merri covered MF already but I recommend for Merri that he sees Macross Zero soon :smirk:

I'd say Macross Frontier should be watched after Zero but it doesn't matter that much. Then again viewing Zero after having seen ep 10 of MF was very interesting experience :)

It's only 4 OVAs long but utterly gorgeous with pretty much best (excluding Macross Frontier which wins due to superior 3D and art direction) aerial combat I've ever seen. If you loved - for example - the epic dogfight in ep 13 you'll love Zero

Weak points:

- characters are more "typical" anime characters in terms of depth, not on SDF/MP/MF level with certain exceptions (then again Zero isn't about characters)
- music aspect is pretty much completely de-emphathized and is - for first time in Macross franchise (from what I've seen) - utterly forgettable. Meh
- Ending is a bit weak

Strong points:

- art and animation is gorgeous
- The Combat. Kawamori went CRAZY with this aspect propably fulfilling all of his sickest and most depraved mecha-related dreams (what it lacks in music department it far more than makes up in action department. I swear, 40% of this show is mindblowingly awesome aerial combat that de-emphathise mecha aspect and pimp up the fighter form to GLORIOUS levels. Fuck yeah!)
- Macross mythology is heavily featured and is all cool shit (as I said it shifts focus from characters to shows mythos. Interesting stuff.) with this being prequel to SDF Macross and all
- I said there's exception to "weakness" in character department

IT HAS MOTHERFUCKING ROY FOCKER IN FAR BIGGER ROLE THAN IN SDF MACROSS BEING TOTAL BADASS FROM START TO FINISH IT'S NOT LIKE YOU NEED ANY OTHER REASON FOR WATCHING THIS

Zero should be watched for godly combat + Focker combination

LiLi · Postby **LiLi** » Wed Feb 10, 2010 6:08 pm

@FMA: I liked Ed & Al and thought the series was pretty good - with the exception of a few forgettable episodes. Shamballa though... could have been better, IMO.

I am planning on watching MF precisely for the promised TROLL factor - I wouldn't bother if it were just a remake. ;) That, and the soundtrack.

IIRC I started watching Macross Zero when it came out but dropped it about halfway - probably because the characters didn't seem too memorable, but I might be mistaken.

GITS: I watched GITS 2.0 and Innocence. I liked the former more, TBH. I'm planning on also rewatching the original GITS movie since it's been a long while and IIRC I'd only seen it dubbed.

GITS SAC: I think I've watched a good part of the GITS SAC series but never managed to finish it due to a variety of personal reasons (not because I didn't like it - I did). Watching The Laughing Man, my impression was that in the series-to-OVA/movie transition, a lot of the details that made the series so entertaining were lost to cuts.

Merridian · Postby **Merridian** » Wed Feb 10, 2010 7:54 pm

Xard wrote:Heh, Merri covered MF already but I recommend for Merri that he sees Macross Zero soon

I’d already started dl’in Zero after finishing Frontier, never fear! :)

LiLi wrote: I watched GITS 2.0 and Innocence. I liked the former more, TBH. I'm planning on also rewatching the original GITS movie since it's been a long while and IIRC I'd only seen it dubbed.

GitS 2.0 looked dumb. I have the original (it’s one of my favorite animated movies), and it’s a masterpiece as it is. Why they felt the need to “retouch” it with altering color palate, CGI shit, etc is beyond me. It’s already a visual spectacle without all that stuff.

Innocence is great, but very very uneven for Oshii. First half is where its strengths lie, since even though it looks cool in the second half, it sort of disintegrates & meanders for a little while before suddenly having a kickass (if strangely-justified) shoot out at the end. Combined with the overabundance of quotes thrown into the film, I’d probably consider Innocence to be one of the worst Oshii flicks I’ve seen—which sounds harsher than it really is, since formalistically it’s still awesome, and it still entertains me every time I watch it. It’s just not quite up to e.g. Patlabor 2, GitS, or even Sky Crawlers.

Defectron · Postby **Defectron** » Wed Feb 10, 2010 10:55 pm

Alright, finnally a 2010 anime that's actually good. I just saw the first ep of katanagatari today and it was pretty fun. It's unusual for a series to have episodes longer then half an hour though. Well it looks like 2010 wont be completely dominated by dork fantasy anime afterall.

Eva Yojimbo · Postby **Eva Yojimbo** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 12:13 am

<- Really wants to see Macross Frontier but very small chance of it coming to English subbed DVD + very small chance of me ever hooking my PC up to my HOME THEATER (damn you Brik) = Very small chance of me ever seeing it. :(

BrikHaus · Postby **BrikHaus** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 12:15 am

Eva Yojimbo wrote:very small chance of me ever hooking my PC up to my PC

Don't worry, I'd say there is a very good chance that your PC is already hooked up to your PC!

Eva Yojimbo · Postby **Eva Yojimbo** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 12:17 am

My brain is too fuzzled to try and catch up on the interweb today.

Vinyl collection at Discogs · Postby **Ornette** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 12:54 am

It's really not difficult at all and there's plenty of guides on google ranging from very cheap to ridiculous. Once you have a networked PC connected to your home theater, you'll be wondering how you ever got by without having tens of thousands of shows you can watch on demand or watching your entire video library (and whatever you torrent) without having to get up off of your couch. I wonder why everyone doesn't have one, you can watch shows streamed from the network's own websites or on hulu instead of paying for cable.

People could be watching Bakemonogatari in 1080p with DTS audio on their HDTVs.

Eva Yojimbo · Postby **Eva Yojimbo** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 1:22 am

It's really a combination of:

1. Not having the free time to research, buy, and set it up.
2. Being swamped with tons of Netflix movies to watch.

2. really prevents me from having the impetus to find the time for everything in 1. I might find someone local and tech savvy and just have them do it for me which will at least save the time needed to do it myself.

Merridian · Postby **Merridian** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 1:27 am

Jimbo wrote:<- Really wants to see Macross Frontier but very small chance of it coming to English subbed DVD + very small chance of me ever hooking my PC up to my HOME THEATER (damn you Brik) = Very small chance of me ever seeing it. :(

Due to distribution dickery, just consider MF a guilt-free dl. AND HOOK UP YOUR PC TO HOME THEATRE. There's a lot of stuff that hasn't been released you're missing out on (like Oniisama E! Captain Harlock! GE999! MACROSS FRONTIER!). DON’T SAY LAZY :fistshake:

Ornette wrote:People could be watching Bakemonogatari in 1080p with DTS audio on their HDTVs.

I wish I had an HDTV. :(

My folks are seriously considering this kind of setup, though (well, not exactly this, but something like it). I have no idea if/when they plan on actually implementing it, though.

--------
I ate through 8 full eps of Oniisama E today. Oh man. This is getting DARK. Like, it had its dark moments before now (obviously), but now it's reaching DARK of NGE-like extremes. Man o man o man.

master_lloyd · Postby **master_lloyd** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 4:08 am

Merridian wrote:GitS 2.0 looked dumb. I have the original (it’s one of my favorite animated movies), and it’s a masterpiece as it is. Why they felt the need to “retouch” it with altering color palate, CGI shit, etc is beyond me. It’s already a visual spectacle without all that stuff.

I'm inclined to agree with you, but since the DVD was on offer, came with the original version, and GITS is one of my favourite anime films of all time, I thought I'd buy it anyway.

LiLi · Postby **LiLi** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 4:16 am

Jimbo wrote:<- Really wants to see Macross Frontier but very small chance of it coming to English subbed DVD

Oooh... why is that?

Merridian wrote:I ate through 8 full eps of Oniisama E today. Oh man. This is getting DARK. Like, it had its dark moments before now (obviously), but now it's reaching DARK of NGE-like extremes. Man o man o man.

Perhaps I should have warned you that OLD SCHOOL SHOUJO is were the real psichological violence lies? Shoujo can be seriously morbid - it's not for the faint of heart! :lol:

Perhaps you could say that NGE is a bit like OSS meets GIANT ROBOT ANIME.

Merridian wrote:GitS 2.0 looked dumb. I have the original (it’s one of my favorite animated movies), and it’s a masterpiece as it is.

I didn't mind it - I'll get back to you on that after I rewatch the original in its entirety. I had GITS on VHS - that's how old my copy is! :lol:

Innocence is great, but very very uneven for Oshii. [] Combined with the overabundance of quotes thrown into the film

I found the overabundance of quotes frankly annoying... Innocence tried a bit too hard at times, IMHO, to look uber-shiny, but as you said the story development had... flaws. I have the DVD with the "musical" version - I tried to watch it before the actual movie and it made no sense! :lol:

LeoXiao · Postby **LeoXiao** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 6:18 am

I just saw Blue Submarine #6. It had some potential but was kinda bad. The female lead annoyed me, and the other characters didn't seem developed enough.

Postby **Shin-seiki** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 8:16 am

Eva Yojimbo wrote:<- Really wants to see Macross Frontier but very small chance of it coming to English subbed DVD + very small chance of me ever hooking my PC up to my HOME THEATER (damn you Brik) = Very small chance of me ever seeing it. :(

Did someone say English subbed Macross Frontier DVD?

I got all nine volumes subbed. :ting:

Y'all should learn to Usenet .

Xard · Postby **Xard** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 8:19 am

Those don't look like Lunar subs to me :uhh:

Meh, cool people buy blureis, rip the vids & attach the subs onto the files. And if one absolutely has to I guess one could burn them on blurei disks...

Postby **Mr. Tines** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 9:50 am

LiLi wrote:
Jimbo wrote:<- Really wants to see Macross Frontier but very small chance of it coming to English subbed DVD

Oooh... why is that?

There's a long running saga involving the people who licensed a bunch of series, including the original Macross, and slice-and-diced them to make Robotech.

Xard · Postby **Xard** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 10:33 am

LiLi:

Answerman wrote:There's two particularly nasty hurdles preventing Macross Frontier from showing up stateside.

The first is the inarguable 800-pound gorilla in the room whenever anyone attempts to license anything Macross-related: Harmony Gold.

Harmony Gold is pretty vicious when it comes to protecting their legal rights regarding Macross and Robotech in the United States - consider, for example, the kerfluffle that erupted over the announcement of Mechwarrior 5 a couple of months ago. They maintain a pretty tight grip over their copyright of the Macross name, and the word underground is that they're notoriously difficult to work with.

All that aside, I'm sure most companies wouldn't mind putting up with Harmony Gold and all their nonsense if they were sure that Macross Frontier would be a hit. And that's the big reason why I don't think Macross Frontier is likely to get licensed; it wouldn't be a hit.

To begin with, it's a very, very expensive show to license. Mainly because of the excess of catchy J-Pop tunes that are littered throughout each episode. The rights to license the music alone would be more expensive than your average, run-of-the-mill moe-fest anime series. Not to mention that the last Macross series that achieved any sort of success in the US was, what Macross Plus? And that was over a decade ago. ADV apparently didn't do so well with their big re-mastered, re-dub of the original series. Basically, there are a ton of reasons why we're unlikely to see Macross Frontier in the US any time soon. Or Macross 7. Or Macross Zero. Or even the terrific Macross: Do You Remember Love? movie. The fans want all this Macross stuff, but it's exorbitantly expensive and dealing with Harmony Gold is a bitch and the sales at the end of the day are rather mediocre.

Sad.

Merridian · Postby **Merridian** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 10:44 am

LiLi wrote:Shoujo can be seriously fuckin awesome- it's not for the faint of heart!

fixed. Oniisama E's morbidity just increases its awesome factor astronomically.

LiLi wrote:I had GITS on VHS - that's how old my copy is!

Yeah I replaced my VHS with a schweet DVD back in... 04 I guess? I remember being uber-psyched that I could watch the sub. :lol:

Answerman wrote:ADV apparently didn't do so well with their big re-mastered, re-dub of the original series.

ADV only remastered & remixed for surround sound the audio for their worse-than-average dub track; the Japanese was left in its regular dirty stereo. I'm not sure if they were too lazy to do the Japanese track, didn't have the resources, or what, but man it was a disappointment. Not to mention the inconsistency of the subtitling--that release was… lacking, to say the least.

LiLi · Postby **LiLi** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 11:26 am

Thanks guys - I didn't know that Harmony Gorilla's Robotech Deal would affect EVERY SINGLE Macross license in the US EVUR...

Merridian wrote:
LiLi wrote:Shoujo can be seriously fuckin awesome- it's not for the faint of heart!
fixed. Oniisama E's morbidity just increases its awesome factor astronomically.

"...And so it came to pass that before long, Merridian had an OLD SCHOOL SHOUJO STASH... " :lol:

Also, I realized the main reason I haven't watched Sora no Woto yet is, until recently I thought what y'all were gushing over was that show

SPOILER: Show

with flying panties! aka Sora no Otoshimono :lol:

:EDIT: Finally started watching Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z Hen.

BrikHaus · Postby **BrikHaus** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 11:49 pm

I tried picking up a couple of recent series (e.g. Soranowoto, among others) and guess what, they are all terrible. However, I remember Zap and Ornette jizzing constantly about Nodame Cantabile, so I watched the first two eps. Finally, a show that isn't 100% garbage. I rather enjoyed it. I hope it remains good.

What anime are you watching right now? May07-Feb10

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